Best of 2024: Part 1
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Well, hello and happy Boxing Day if you're listening to this on Boxing Day in any year. Yes. Happy, I guess, any day you're listening to this on. Yes. Happy that day even if it has a name. They all have names, don't they? Happy last day of the world. Happy Monday. Maybe some of you are listening to it on Apocalypse Day.

Benito wrote all this. Yes, this is the script. We're reading it verbatim. It's what Benito wrote. Yes.

Which is my favourite thing every year. Yeah, it is. Is reading what he's written on the best of. Welcome to part one of our favourite clips from the last 12 months of off-menu episodes. Expect sparkling, in italics he's put that, conversation, delicious jokes and bread loads, he's put brackets like shed loads, of food chat. Actually, Benito didn't write that bit. That was all James. That was Benito. Now it's time for our first section of the best of. It's National Treasures.

Let's start this year's best of by digging for trej. It says trej. Trej. It says trej. By digging for trej. We've had national trejers aplenty in the Dream Restaurant this year. Danny Dyer, Jessica Hines, Peter Capaldi, Natalie Cassidy, Darren Brown, Rick Astley and Ray Winston. That is mad. Whoa.

I love a roast because we all sit around the table and blank each other. But at least we've made the effort to sit around the table. So I never, when I cook for the kids, they always have different things. So I can never really cook them the same thing, which is the beauty of an air fryer. You know, so I ain't got to fuck about putting two things in an oven. Yeah. You know, like my boy who loves them little frozen pizzas. If I was to make him one, like fresh,

He'd go, no, fuck that, I don't want it. I'd go, but I fucking... I bought a pizza oven outside, it's cost me five grand. Right? When you're not going to eat it. No, I want the little frozen ones. He'd go, fucking hell. What have I brought up here? What have I dragged up? Yeah. The tip to the little frozen ones is...

You get your air fryer sort of squirt, and you just squirt it on the top. Yeah. Just to give it a nice little bit of... What are you squirting in there? The oil. Right, okay. A bit of oil on the top. Yeah. Just so it goes a little bit browner. Yeah. You know, so... Because they're horrible, them frozen pieces. Like the Chicago Town ones. You can never get them right. Yeah. Not yet. Chicago Town, that's it. Yeah. Chicago Town, something like that. And then there's just these fucking bland fucking...

Especially the four cheese one that he likes. Yeah. It's one cheese. There's no way in the fucking world there's four cheeses on it. So now and again, there's a katsu curry one, which, fucking hell. God. But, so, he will have a pepperoni. Sometimes he'll have a cheese and a pepperoni. Yeah. You know, just to mix it up. And I'll just do some fries in here, fry, and that's him done. Chop up a bit of cucumber to make myself feel better. Yeah. Yeah.

See him sort of gnaw around that because he won't really eat veggies and stuff. Yeah. My daughter, she's 17. She's a little bit more open with food. There has to be certain things, certain pastas. You know, like pasta is the same thing, isn't it? Yeah.

Not the nude pasta. I'm talking about dried pasta. No matter what fucking shape it is, it tastes the fucking same, doesn't it? But it has to be, if I do a vodka pasta, it has to be the little farfelli. The dicky bows. And I'm sorry to say this, but they're a cunt to get hold of. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, like penne, sweet rigatoni, you can get hold of the fusilli. Yeah, they're everywhere. All over the place. But the fucking farfelli, it's got to be a certain gaffe, you've got to get it. There's another one, the shells. It begins with a C. Yeah, I know, I know. Little pockets of love. You do them with a bolognese, you know, it's a beautiful thing. They're great because they catch loads of sauce. Yeah, little...

Little pockets. It's just, you know, it's beautiful. But it's got to be farfelly. So I've done that for yesterday anyway. So for the rest of the week, I've got to try and come up with... I bought a fucking magnet for the fridge, right? A menu magnet. But what we're going to do, we're going to write down what you want to eat all week. So I can, you know, get it all in order. No one's fucking gone near it at all. They're not interested in it.

So every morning I go, well, what do you want me to do tonight? Just so I can get it in order. I don't know. I go, but I need a rough idea. Just because later when you're angry, because I've legally got a fetus. Yeah.

There's a few things I've got to do until you're 18. Feed you, get you about. You basically just become a cabbie and a chef. That's the fucking two main things. The other thing is every time they turn the hot water tap on, there's got to be hot water. When it gets cold, the radiators have to work. That's the other thing. And you've got to clothe them. Yeah.

But when they're 18, that's it. They can fuck off. Yeah. So up to that point, I need to know, what the fuck do you want to eat? Yeah. So, you know, it's like four different things. That's what it is. So luckily by Friday, it's a takeaway. Yeah. Just get away with it. So I don't know what's happening tonight. There's been no discussions when I left. So I know it's on me when I get home. What the fuck are they going to eat? It's going to be frozen. Oh, that's not in the fridge. Why didn't you get that? Because you didn't fucking tell me this morning.

But I do love them. Yeah, yeah. I love them very, very much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you haven't got kids, there's no rush. Yeah, yeah. Dream main course.

okay you're eating this with a spoon um you could eat probably with a spoon but you might want a fork yeah because there's something that i um we discovered we did a lot of tempura during lockdown this was a thing that we did and so this this main course is a sort of combo of things but one of the i mean maybe i suppose i could call it a side but it's on the main plate but it could also be a side okay

When we were in lockdown, I had a card that let me go to shop in the cash and carry, which I was registered for VAT. I didn't think there was a problem with it. I don't know. Just maybe I'm not running soups and dips yet. Maybe I'm just in the kind of R&D stage. But still, I had a cash and carry card. So those were the only circumstances which my husband would let me panic by because obviously cash and carries, that's the point of cash and carry.

cash carry it's all panic buying you know it's tins and tins and tins of everything and they have big yeah lots of everything so it's kind of i've never been in one but it's my dream to go oh my god i can't believe that it is so fun yeah it's so i bet so one of the things they had there was huge tubs of artichokes so artichokes big solid lovely artichokes so you would buy it it would seem like an expensive buy it would be quite a lot of your bill because obviously artichokes

But when you kind of worked out how much you were paying for one tub of artichoke, literally three little slices, it worked out a bargain. You may as well. So we had quite a lot of artichokes knocking about in the house during lockdown. And tempura was kind of on the menu. And then I was like, oh,

artichoke tempura yeah let's go there let's go there and it was out of this world that sounds amazing it really was artichoke tempura why wouldn't you because it's like the way an artichoke is there's layers and so the surface area the way it is that sounds like the beginning of a the way it is the way an artichoke is

the way she is so there's layers exactly so that when you kind of you know cook it like that it kind of holds its shape obviously because they were really good proper they were kind of in brine so they weren't too slimy and squidgy they were still had a little bit of crunch they were good kind of cured artichokes if you like and they work brilliantly tempura so that would be a feature in my main course how big was the tub of artichokes i think we'd all like okay uh like

Okay, let me just try to think about it. Like, how could I describe it in this context? I mean... Bucket? I was going to say bucket, but that would be too big. So not a bucket. Not a bucket. Not a bucket. Like a small bucket. Small bucket. A small, kind of a lot, a very, very large jar. So like what you can imagine, the largest jar. Yes. Like an unreasonably large jar that you would never find in any shop. Vase?

It depends on the vase. I mean, small vase. So I think a few people might be listening to this and thinking that they've got a very different definition of panic buying than you have. Right. Because you panic bought a tub of

a tub of artichokes. We all remember that part of lockdown. Yeah. Where everyone went mad and bought up all the artichokes and you couldn't find any. My husband was extremely like, like strict. So we would go, we would like about not panic buy. It was like absolutely. So, but he was almost so worried about it that we would go shopping and I would put two bags of muesli and he would say, put that back.

Put one back. I was like, I think it's normal to buy two bags of muesli. Yeah. But he wouldn't allow it. Even outside of a pandemic. Outside of a pandemic, I would buy two bags of muesli, but it was not allowed. I'd have to put one back. You're having muesli every morning. Yeah.

You don't want to buy muesli every single week. Yeah. Buy two bags. That makes sense. Yeah. Regardless of the global health situation. If it wasn't for your, uh, wimp husband, how, how much, uh, you called him it. No, I did not call him that. He was, he was a good citizen. Square. No good citizen. It wasn't a good citizen of a husband. Thank you. How much do you think you would have bought of stuff? Do you think you would have panicked? Would you have gone? No, I would have. I mean, I,

although in some cases when things ease, I did then buy, okay, we're still eating brown rice. Um,

and and in fact chickpeas and in fact lentils do you buy the big sacks of rice oh yeah it came in boxes so yeah so yes yeah i had to buy buckets so it didn't go off but i felt like that was okay because it's not like i'm going to the shops and then clearing i was buying it from somewhere that wanted to sell lentils in bulk so does that does that count as panic buying not really

Not if you're still having it. It's not like, yeah. I guess everyone who's walking around Cash and Carrie is probably not panicking. But I will tell you this, when it all arrives,

all arrived the first time my husband was like what is this I said I've bought some things in bulk from you know wholesaler stuff that I think that would be useful and he sat down he said I've done the calculations if we eat this food stuff for every meal we will still be eating it in seven years he said you are going to have to send half of this back

So I did. I did. I sent half of it back. Yeah. Because it was just completely... Well, they probably thought you were like a survivalist or something. And to a certain extent, in that moment, I felt like that's maybe what it was. But anyway, so I did have to send half of it back. Sure. Luckily, I've learned how to make lentil soup, so... Yeah, that explains your start. That explains why lentil soup is... Guess what, guys? It's lentil soup again!

You're peeling chickpeas and making your own hummus. Yeah, so far, every single dish has been things that you panicked on during the pandemic. Toilet paper for dessert. No, that was one thing we didn't panic on. No, that was not... I never understood that. Never understood that.

Or Hook. Hook's the other big role, I think. Yeah, yeah, I've been offered that. Yeah, because Hook you also play, but that's not Panto, really. That's Peter Pan. Yeah, but you can do Panto, Peter Pan, Peter Panto. I guess so. But when you play Hook, you also get to play Mr. Darling.

Yeah. Oh yeah. It's traditional. Yeah. There's all these traditions in Panto that you have to follow. It's also to do with how much money they've got. So they can't afford a Mr. Darling. Yeah. So they get Captain Hook to play Mr. Darling also. And of course, obviously Captain Hook's hook is a measure of how good the pantomime is. Oh yeah, of course. Same as the lamp. Yeah. Same as the lamp. Because if you get just like a plastic Woolworths kind of hook, it's,

You know, like your Aladdin lamp here. It's not going to impress the audience very much. No, you need a proper sharpened hook, don't you? Yeah, and also you can obviously see the actors. There's always that kind of knob of metal or grey plastic on top of his hand. And the hook comes out the end of that, where obviously if his hand had been removed...

there'd be space there so the hook would be farther up so i don't know how you do that the palladium panther they actually remove the the actor's hand yeah for yeah yeah yeah reattach it who are the stars of that this year i don't know who it is this year but certainly the years i've been big names big names and then also regulars as well so uh we're talking clary he's in it a lot love him yeah um havers is in it a lot as well as this year yeah

Nigel Havers I've never seen anyone have a better time than Nigel Havers doing the Palladium Panto yeah he's having a scream that guy yes he seems to have a scream most of the time yeah he seems a very happy fella yeah have you crossed paths with Havers I don't think I have

I don't think he's got his own theatre company now. He's doing Private Lives with Patricia Hodge. Oh, yeah. There you go. Marvellous. I have literally crossed paths with Havers before. Near where I used to live, I went for a run and I ran past Nigel Havers. Well, that's ironic because he first came to fame via Chariots of Fire.

Yes, of course. Very famous scene. Yeah. All the young men running on the beach. Yeah. And I can see you there. Yeah. Well, I don't run as well as that. He was probably looking at me going... Was he running or did he have a croissant and a cup of coffee? It was croissant vibes. He was strolling, had a big scarf on, that sort of thing. You can't run in it. I mean, after you've been in Chariots of Fire, it's like you can't go running in public if you're Nigel Havers. Everyone who starts singing that theme tune at you or whatever, you can't do it.

I crossed paths with you once, Peter. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Asked you for directions. How was I? It's fine if you don't remember. Was I nice or not nice? You were lovely. You knew where the place was. You gave me successful directions. I'll tell you what happened. I was going for an audition. This was many years ago. And it was at the American Church on Tottenham Court Road. Oh, yeah? And I'd never been there before. And I was a bit late. And I was really panicking. Yeah. Because I didn't know where it was. And then I saw you and I thought, Peter Capaldi will know where the American Church is. All right. And you directed me straight there. That's fantastic. Yeah. It was fantastic.

It was the most successful bit of that day, I'll tell you. Did you get the job? No. No, no, no. It was five lines to play Warren Beatty in a drama about Barbara Windsor's life. I can see the Warren Beatty kind of thing now. That's what the casting director said. And then I started doing the lines and she looked very disappointed. She shouldn't have. I think you look like a dead ringer. I was on Graham Norton with Warren Beatty. Were you? Yeah, yeah. And he was really, really nice guy.

But he did that thing that big stars tend to do. He said to me, when you're in LA, we must have dinner. And I said, yeah, of course, that'd be great. And that was it. And I thought, but how do you do that? Do I, what happens? Do I go to LA and try, because you don't give me a card or a number or anything like that. Who did I get in touch with? Graham Norton and say, have you got a contact number for me?

and do I call him and does he remember or do I get through to his people? How does that work? Do you want to go for a meal with Ed instead and pretend he's Warren? Thank you very much. No worries. Obviously I would love to normally but at the moment things are really... Sure, you've got a criminal record coming up. I've got a lot of stuff to do with the show and stuff. Thank you anyway.

I quite like flat sparkling water, though. What, like a soda water? Like a soda water, but leaving it to go flat. Oh, okay. Because it tastes different. We've mentioned it on the podcast before. I don't know why that when you leave sparkling water to go flat, it should just taste like still water, shouldn't it? But it doesn't. It's got its own flavour. Yeah, I don't like that. What do you think of Ed, that he likes it? What do you think of Ed?

now i'm wondering how you got there and i'm wondering if you had sparkling pint of sparkling water next to your bed that went flat and then had it and liked it do you remember how that happened you know what it might have been maybe in a hotel or something on tour where you know you're going to a hotel and there might be a bottle of still and a bottle of sparkling i'm drinking the still first of all and then i might get back later and be like i'm gonna have some water and it's sparkling couple of sips oh i can't have sparkling before bed pop it

on the bedside table, wake up in the morning, oh, I need some water. Hello. So, yeah. That's him saying hello to the water. Yeah.

Not to like the cleaner or someone who's coming. The hotel manager. And I would, knowing me, I would say hello to the water out loud if I was by myself. Yeah, I say hello to inanimate objects quite a lot of the time. Yeah? Yeah. Can you remember some inanimate objects you said hello to? I like to do it. If I've got coats on the banister, I'll talk to them. I'll go, right, come on, time to get you away. Time to get you away. I love that. Because they're on the banister. So let's get them in the cupboard. I go, come on now.

Stop hanging out on the banister. You've had your fun. Yeah, we've been out for long enough. You've had your airing. Get back in the cupboard.

That's good. I'm trying to think if I speak to any inanimate objects. Yeah, we do need to hear that. You've got four cats, though, so I think you get a lot of your talking out. Four. Four cats. How lovely. I had a friend's day for five days recently, and that made me realise how often I say hello to the cats. It's every time I see them, I say hello to them individually by name, and I realise how much it was not annoying my friend, but he must think I'm just bonkers. Yeah.

I'm just constantly saying hello to them. That's what children do to parents. So I won't really say, hello, Eliza, every time I see her. Or hello, Joni. I don't do that. But they go, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mummy, mummy, mummy. And that's what you're doing to your cats. Even in the course of one conversation. So they'll get your attention with mum. You'll say something back and then they'll say mum again and say something. I say mum all the time. Yeah.

I just, um, I don't like when waiters point at your food. I don't like it when they get really close with their finger. Maybe this is just like a nicer restaurant thing. But has anybody else brought this one up? No, I'm not sure. We're not at the plopping, we're not at the pointing. Okay, alright, I'm going to work alphabetically through my fingers. So, yeah, that thing with the finger, when they come in, they go, this is a carrot, and they're pointing, and they're not actually touching the food, because you can...

slide a sheet of paper between their fingers to prove it. But that's an annoying habit that I don't like. It's sort of like it's like operation in the game. It's like that. Where they hover it just above. Have you ever been tempted to get your plate and just move it up really quickly so their finger goes right in your foot? You have to grab the whole time. No, you could do the whole time. You'd grab the plate and lift it. I haven't done that, but that would

defeat the point because contamination is the risk. Yeah, but then you'd get a new one, right? But they'd be so embarrassed. But they'd give you a new one if you'd take love into their finger. I'll tell you who would struggle with that.

Martin Freeman. He's very weak. He can't even lift a plate. Oh, he was on my show Being Weak. I said I thought you were just being mean about him. No, no. Darren Brown got him to lift a plate. He couldn't lift a plate. You can just say Darren when you're in the room, James. Darren Brown put a phone on the back of his neck. He told him all this stuff about crystals. He said this is really powerful. He said this is... He said, Martin...

This is a really powerful phone. And then you couldn't lift the things up. He couldn't lift stuff up. He couldn't lift a pencil up. That's right. He couldn't lift a plate up. It was embarrassing. It's a plate with like a sandwich on it. That's right. God, yes. He's a nice man. We've watched all your stuff, man. You have. We've done your research. We know it all. But like, yeah, I mean, when you're doing something like that with someone like Martin Freeman, are you like, man, I'm going to make you look so weak on TV? Yeah.

You're loving it. I don't think anyone remembers that, apart from the fact that he is brilliant, but I don't think anyone's ever mentioned the Making Martin Freeman Weak skit. That's very niche. It's a good one. Yeah, it's great. It's a good one. Maybe he mentions it. Maybe he mentions it.

I think we had him on the podcast. Maybe we did bring it up. I don't know if we brought it up or not. He was very well dressed. Yeah. Very well dressed. It was during lockdown. He was on Zoom. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if he's still a little dicky. He still looked pretty good, I bet. But I like that your interpretation of it is wasn't Martin Freeman embarrassed when he came out and

said he was weak but he probably just thought oh I'm on a Derren Brown show and Derren's done a trick on me when Derren told him all the stuff when Derren was like all that stuff I told you was nonsense by the way he could tell he was like I'm just a weak man

in his eyes he was like oh no you've given him a whole spiel about how the energy in crystals is the same as our energy in the phones I'm really trying to remember what it was it was so long ago the vibrations in the phones are the same as the vibrations in the crystals I'm going to put it on the back of your neck now Martin now try and lift this it can't lift a plate it can't lift a pen

Ultimately, I'm cleverer than you is the bottom line of anything I do. That's the take home. Yeah, yeah. That's the take home, especially for Martin Freeman. Stronger. Stronger man than you. Pop-Dubs or bread? Pop-Dubs or bread, David Brown? Pop-Dubs or bread? Jesus. Bread. I'm going for the... There's a group, I used to live not far from Dalston, and there is a place there called the Dusty Knuckle, and it's... Do you know it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I found out many years later that they employ, I think it's people, ex-prisoners perhaps? Which...

given it's got a slightly charitable edge to it, you might expect that to sort of take the edge off the quality of the bread, if anything, but it doesn't. The bread's amazing. It's still bread-focused and charity-focused. Yeah, exactly. So I fell in love with that when I lived in London. Haven't had it for a while, but their sourdough. Of late, I've discovered, I've been in Bristol a lot recently, and Hart's Bakery in Bristol also does a very good, and also Reg the Veg, which is the world's greatest. Reg the Veg. Reg the Veg.

Is Hearts the one that's under Temple Meads? Yes, under Temple Meads Station. You come out and go down there. Phenomenal place. You have a pass of crystals. I often do. It's definitely a great place. Really, really good. Great sausage rolls. Very good sausage rolls. Yeah, I love that place. It's brilliant. Oh, there you go. There you go. So yeah, I'd go for a really good sourdough. A nice sourdough, yeah. It's sort of the hipster of the bread bowl, isn't it? I sort of hate myself...

saying it but it is tasty though isn't it that's the thing it is butter warm with butter yeah none of the oil nonsense yeah yeah warm and butter a little bit of salt cracked salt and that lovely I never know whether when it's warm you feel they've just cooked it it probably isn't they probably just stick it in the microwave for a bit or warm it up but I yeah for the dream you want it out you know just cooked right

We won't microwave it in the dream restaurant. No, you wouldn't do that. There wouldn't be a microwave in the dream restaurant. This is all, all bread is fresh out the oven. Yeah. Wow. Have you ever baked yourself? No, not myself. LAUGHTER

That's the next TV show? Yeah, that's the finale. You're still writing this show, this live show. Tonight, I will bake myself. You bake yourself. I tried to, I had the lockdown thing. I tried it like I did like a lemon drizzle, a couple of things. And then that was it.

Did you? Did you embrace... Didn't do any baking, realised very quickly that shops were still open and stuff. You could go and get a loaf of bread. You could buy your own scones. You mainly did barbecuing. I did a lot of barbecuing. Oh, that's nice. I'm making rotisserie chicken quite a lot at the moment. I've got rotisserie in my new oven. Nice. That's nice. That is fun. Do you find... I would find it very easy to just watch it. Yeah, yeah. You do. You put the light on, you just sit and watch it. Grab a stool or a cushion. And listen, I don't want to keep on chipping in ideas for your new show. Go on.

but you've got to find new ways of hypnotising people. A rotating chicken. Watch a rotisserie chicken.

You go into a trance that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a toy, is it? Yeah, okay, brilliant idea. A giant chicken, clearly fake, but a giant chicken on stage rotating. Yeah, yeah. And they get hypnotised and then when they're hypnotised you swap them with the chicken and then they wake up and they're spinning on the spit and you're like... And it's all chickens in the audience now. And the audience is for the chickens. But the chicken's headless because how are they...

You haven't thought this through? No, I haven't thought it through. But they're headless at first, then you restore their heads with magic. I love as we're talking, Ben's just like making notes. Ben's writing stuff down. Yeah, yeah. Every time Ben writes stuff down, you know it's a... Well, no, Ben's probably writing down the idea for the trick and then he's going to do it himself. Ben used to be a magician when he was a little boy. Yeah.

It's why his nickname is The Great Benito, because he called himself The Great Benito. He had a waistcoat and a magic box and everything, and would put on magic tricks in the living room, calling himself The Great Benito. So he probably is writing down ideas for his magic show. Silently. Do you ever have that in your shows? Can you ever look out and spot a magician in the audience, like a fellow, and go, oh, they're watching this differently, and I'm not sure... They make notes like Ben does. Yeah. Yeah, I've...

gags and things and they write them down. It's a little bit annoying. A little bit irritating.

Oh, your dream drink then. So we got that nice salad. It's a Chardonnay. It's an Italian Chardonnay. It's Antinori, basically. And the reason I'm sort of like stumbling over saying that and everything is because of how expensive it is. It's ludicrously expensive. And it wouldn't be an everyday, you know, but I'm in my favourite restaurant, dream restaurant, you know.

All the rest of it. Why not? Again, you don't see it everywhere, but when you see it, and I had a very weird experience in Italy recently, and that was that

It's a long story, but I was picking... I don't fly that often, so I drive everywhere. Like, you know, I've driven to Budapest a few times and southern Portugal, outer northern Norway and everywhere. I've driven across America a few times and round Australia because I don't like flying that much. I do do it, obviously, but I'm saying I cut it down. And I like doing the drive as well. And also, I think I've done an awful lot of travelling, especially when I was younger, where I was on planes all the time.

all the freaking time and you arrive somewhere and you go, oh, okay, I'm in the back of a car and I saw this and I saw that and then I've been to Rome but I've got no freaking clue about Italy or what it's like or anything.

And driving there, you get a sense of it because you just stay in places and do stuff. Anyway, on with the story. So I'm going to pick my wife and a friend up in the airport in Rome. So the night before, I just stayed outside of Rome on the coast, actually, funnily enough, in a little place, not a fancy place at all. It was just me. And very often, I'll just think, I'm not going to spend a fortune. I'm only going to be there to sleep. So I go downstairs, and I went into the little restaurant they had. And it was, it was like, there was nothing, it was lovely, but there's nothing amazing about this place, not what you're expecting. I'm looking on the wine list, and I see this wine. I sort of think,

No, no, no. Hang on a second. And it has got a younger brother, by the way. Yeah. Which is about half the price. Yeah. I kept reading it going. I think what they've done is it's the younger brother, but they've written it like it's the big brother. Yeah. So I said, can I have a look at that wine? And he said, yeah. So over he goes. Or I think maybe I went to their wine cabinet and had a look at it. They had like a glass, you know. I thought, no, that's pretty much it.

that's, you know, and it was literally, it was stupid, the price of it. It was like so much so that when I told my wife and her friend the day after they said, well, perhaps we should just go back and buy everything they've got. It was too cheap. Yeah. And I felt guilty about it. Actually. I kept thinking, no, no, I should have told them, should have told them. And anyway, whatever. It's been a dilemma ever since. Um,

But it is phenomenal, this wine. And my favourite wine anyway is Chardonnay. And Chardonnay's got a bit of a bad rep, I think, over the last 15 years. I was like, oh, Chardonnay, I don't want to drink that. Footballers call their kids Chardonnay. I don't want to drink that nonsense. Which is absolute bollocks, because the finest white Burgundy you can possibly have is Chardonnay. People just don't call it that necessarily up front, because...

it's sort of frightened everyone into thinking it's like, you know, do you know what I mean? Well, there was that ABC thing for a long time, is it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's sort of got a bit of a bad rep and it's sort of annoys me when I go into a restaurant and they don't have a Chardonnay by the glass. It really annoys me because I'm like, you're reacting to that. You're not reacting to whether it's good or not. And, and we've traveled a lot in America and got a lot of American friends and, and,

Some of their Chardonnays are just unbelievable. My daughter and quite a few of her friends and family friends have this thing about me liking buttery Chardonnay. Yeah. So much so that it's almost become ridiculous. So that like, if we're having a glass of wine, like in Copenhagen and stuff, they're all looking at me, waiting for me to go. Ooh,

Now that's buttery. Is it buttery, Rick? You know what I mean? It's become like this sort of thing. But anyway. That is such a classic dad bullying thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You find the thing. You find the one bit of happiness your dad has. Yeah, and then destroy it. And then you make it a thing of mockery. Oh, it's buttery. You always start with still a sparkling water. Do you have a preference? Sparkling, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Straight away. Always sparkling. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a bit more interesting, isn't it? There's always something going on. And you get a big half a lemon and squeeze it in there. You've got half a lemon squeezed in. Bang. If you're going to have a drink, have a proper drink. Yeah, yeah. Don't mess around. Water's water. That's all it is. It's very good. We need it to live. But you can fancy it up a little bit. Yeah, nice. Do you have a particular sparkling water that you like? No, they're all the same. Believe me.

You know, some are more sparkling than others, I know. But, yeah, it's a load of cobblers, really. Someone's getting a lot of money out of bottling water. It should be free. It's natural, you know.

You sound like, from what I'm getting so far, you don't really trust people. Especially, I'm in South London, I've got to be very careful over here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are a lot of sparkling water gangsters over there. Yeah, Millwall. I didn't know Millwall had got into the sparkling water gang. They're into everything, believe me.

I'm glad that you're squeezing the lemon in there as well. Some people just put the lemon wedge in or slice. Depends how much lemon you like. Yeah. If you just want a little bit of an aroma going on, then you just drop it in. Yeah. But if you like a lot of lemon. Yeah.

You've got to squeeze it in. Especially with ice. Yeah. Are you doing the crushed ice? I imagine you would, because you always try to squeeze in that lemon. Yeah, yeah. Crushed ice is lovely, but it melts very quick. Yeah. With sparkling water, you want chunks. Chunks. Yeah. Big chunky ice. Yeah. I agree with the squeezing the lemon. When people put a wedge in, or like,

If I have a gin and tonic or something and there's like a wedge of lime in there, some people just leave it to bob around. It's not doing anything. Well, I usually leave the lemon in there if I'm having a vodka and coke or something like that. Leave it in every time so I'll know how many I've had.

So when you're making another one, you put a fresh one in and a fresh one in and you know how many drinks you've had. That is genius. And then how many lemons would have to be in there for you to say, I'm not going to have another one? Well, you can't get no more drinking. Where's a glass of lemons? Yeah, where's a big glass of lemons?

Man, what a lot of treasures we had. A big load of trash. So much trash. But from National Treasures Ed to Celebrity Stories, our guests have dished the dirt on their famous encounters. Let's hear from Rhys Nicholson, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Finn Wolfhard.

We went to this restaurant, Gimlet, in Melbourne, and Gordon Ramsay was there. Yes. Was he? Yeah. And he walked through the kitchen to go to the toilet. Yeah. It's like you walking around the bar. Yeah. That's a power move. Yeah. And I don't think he even... Because in my head, it was like, oh, he must be walking through going, great job, guys. Great job, guys. Now, just walk through. Sorry, got to shit. Yeah. It was exciting, though, wasn't it? Yeah. To see Ramsay. Well, and a few weeks before, the Obamas had been there. And classic hospitality iconoclasm.

I found this out. This is all, we were having dinner at Ben's house and there was some chefs there.

And we found out it was one of the chefs from Gimlet. And he said, oh, yeah, halfway through the dinner, he mentioned that the Obama's are at his restaurant tonight. And the dinner stopped. We were like, excuse me? What are you doing here? And he was like, oh, but I kind of understand. He was a little bit like, why? You know, it's like a hospitality mindset. I love chefs and people that their whole lives are about hospitality because. I said, oh, are they in the private dining room? And he went, oh, no, it was booked.

But you know what I mean? It's like, I can't, I respect it so much more because it was about, no, I don't care who you are. It's booked. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was very impressive. And apparently, yeah, they, uh, they sat like the Obama's just sitting out with secret service at tables around them, eating a good time. Great. I would have, I would have wanted to work that night. I mean, that's, that's,

But then what do you... It would have been a buzz to be there, but what do you actually... I think I prefer the story that I didn't go. You didn't go. I think there's more satisfaction. The payoff you get to meet a president. Yeah. I think to decide not to meet a president is pretty fun. If you were working there, James, say you were a waiter there and you were assigned to the Obama's table, how are you playing it? Full erection whole time? No.

napkins going on. Are you saying anything specific or are you just treating them like normal customers or are you trying any little jokes? Are you asking them any questions? That's a very good question actually. I think I'd try and play it cool to begin with. Definitely. But then like I think probably pretty quickly I'd go

Go into like asking them questions. Yeah. Confess you're drunk within two seconds. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, actually, to be honest, if I'm going to go by a recent experience when I met, I met Andrew Garfield the other day. Oh my God. And, uh, I did not. He hates Mondays. I did not play that cool. No. And he's not the Obamas. No. I think he's not. And that's not an insult to Andrew Garfield. I'm sure he'd agree that he's not the Obama. I asked him about every film he's ever been in.

Yeah. Yeah, I was, I was, it was at a festival and I was drunk. Yeah. My opening line to him, I'd never met him before and he was chatting to, Nish Kumar gets another shout out. Yeah. Everyone loves Nish. He was chatting to Nish. I couldn't see who it was. Nish was just chatting to someone at Glastonbury. I walk over, realise who it is. I go, Garfield, you motherfucker. Ha ha!

Right. Another person we can't have on the podcast. Oh, boy. Oh, no. Well, he's just on a lasagna. His response was pretty good. He goes, hey, Castor, you cunt. I was like, but then, then,

Then Mignich proceeded to just tell him about all of his films for a very long time. There's no way he's coming on the podcast. So that's ruined. Now we've ruined it. Did he make excuses and leave? Yeah, eventually. But we had him there for quite a while. Had him there. Had him there. He couldn't get away for a bit. Yeah, he was in a corner. I've never understood the concept of just walking up to someone you admire.

just to meet them. Yeah. Like, it's like similar, like, but you met him in the right way. Like you met him. Let's hear the story again. He said, Garfield, you motherfucker. You didn't handle it well, but you're in the right circumstance. Yeah. You could have, you could have done it well. We've got mutual friends. Yeah. So that's how Nisha started talking to him. Yeah. But also I just watched Silence, the Scorsese film we'd done it for the first time. I'd never seen it before.

So that's what I said. So I said, call him a motherfucker. And then I sat down and it was like, I saw silence the other week, man, you're telling people to trample all the way through that film. You keep telling them to trample because you're telling people to trample on the Bible. And he was like, yeah, you like the trampling stuff. I was like, yeah, you just tell them to trample all the time. Like,

Oh my God. So it wasn't even I loved it or great performance. I said I liked it. It's more, these were some of your lines, Andrew. Yeah, but that was my favourite bit was how much he kept telling people to trample. So I was like, that's great. I told him that seeing Spider-Man 2 in the cinema was the worst experience I've ever had in the cinema. Oh, mate. It's like, not because of him. Not because of him. Honestly, it's like the people in the cinema.

When you go to Cafe Gratitude, do you order in the way they want you to? You know, you have to say, I am the name of the dish. No. No. I am humbled. I am worthy. Yeah, exactly. No, I just go, oh man, can I have the gratitude bowl? And then they go, oh, I am. Yeah. I am. And then they give you like, you know, the word of the day or what have you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'd say, yeah, if you're going there regularly, you probably lose patience with that. Yeah. I bet there is a dish on there called Worthy. I'm trying to remember I am Worthy. I think there is something on there about Worthy. I have to ask. I think there is. Imagine if we Google it now and it turns out it's the green salad. It

Imagine that. It would be crazy. That would be like a David Blaine trick. That would be crazy. He's done a trick for you, David Blaine? Yes, David has. Very jealous of that. He's done several. That's the only reason I want to be in this biz. He's done several. So that one day David Blaine will do a trick for me. He did something so crazy with Will and I. Really? Oh, he touched Will's shoulder and I felt it, but Will didn't. You cried?

I cried. You saw it. I saw that. You cried. It was emotional. Yeah, it was emotional because I was like, no way. How did you do that? So he touched Will's shoulder. But I felt it. And Will did it. You had your eyes closed. And I had my eyes closed. And he said something like, you know, do you feel that? And I'm like, yes. And he's like, I'm not touching your shoulder. So he was like showing the connection between us. And I haven't been able to get away from Will.

sense because of that connection. Like, I blame it on David. We are really connected. Through David Blaine. Through David Blaine. But yeah, it was a crazy experience. He's on a whole nother level. I can't believe you saw him do the spike through the hand stuff. I was obsessed with that for a brief period of time. He was showing everyone that where he genuinely just puts a spike through his hand.

Yeah. I don't think he genuinely... You know the things that you slam receipts on? Yeah. He just put one... It's an ice pick, wasn't it? He put an ice pick through his hand. Jada saw it and Jada touched it. Yeah. I don't even know.

I don't. Well, look. I don't even mess with David because I'm just like, you're otherworldly, man. I don't even know if you can call this magic. He came to London and he suspended himself in a see-through box above Trafalgar Square or above the Thames, wasn't it? And everyone just came and shouted at him and stuff. They threw McDonald's in the box. They weren't as impressed as... No? How long did he stay up there? Ages. Like days and days and days. And people just threw their McDonald's at it in the box.

Really? Yeah. Welcome to London, David. We didn't represent ourselves very well, did we? Oh my gosh. It went bad.

Yeah, I love, like, yes, like, alcoholic slush drinks. Yeah. Absolutely great. And you don't see them on the... The Blue Crew. The Blue Crew. I don't know if you told them about this. No, I haven't told them about the Blue Crew. Actually, why would you? What's the Blue Crew, James? Actually, don't tell... James, don't tell them, because... I'll tell them about the Blue Crew. I have to now. A bunch of us went for a meal before going to see Aberforshire.

Abba Voyage. Yeah, obviously. As all great stories start. Obviously, I knew you were going to Abba Voyage. Yes. And I spent all night while you were at Abba Voyage laughing about you going to Abba Voyage. Yeah. Ed did a gig with Kamail. Kamail told him we were all going to see Abba Voyage. Made him laugh. Immediately, you get texts from Ed and Nish asking me about you lot going to Abba Voyage. Immediate text back, yes, that's the first time I'm meeting Paul Rudd. Yeah. And it was. Yeah. It was the first time. Guess what? It was.

It was awesome. It was just terrifying. I walked in. So first of all, I got to the restaurant, smoking goat.

lovely, great restaurant. Really good. Got there, and I was like, I wonder if we'll be the first here. As soon as we walk in, there's a girl freaking out to her mum that Ant-Man's in the restaurant. So we're not the first here. Go over to the table, and Finn's friend, Fred, and Paula there, Kamau joins us, and my girlfriend and I. And then...

I see on the menu is a cocktail. Yes. It's called something blue. I can't remember what the first word was. Blue something. Look it up. Bonita's going to... We did have it. You guys had it as well? We've been there. Yeah, I know. We've been there. Do we have the blue thing? I think we had... We might...

I definitely, I don't think I had it maybe. I don't know if I've had it before because I wasn't prepared. I jumped on it, I jumped on the bandwagon immediately. So I ordered it just because it had tequila in it. If it turns out you've had it before, it's the perfect James Acaster story. Yeah, of course it is. Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely perfect. I forgot I had it before.

Cosmic Blues. The Cosmic Blues. I wanted the Cosmic Blues because it had tequila in. And then everyone jumped on it. I immediately went, because sometimes I like copying people. This is a restaurant I also didn't know, so sometimes I'll get the locals' favorite. Yeah.

The local flavour. Everyone apart from Kamail orders it. As a stance. He took a stance. Kamail's very, yeah, I am not getting the blue. But he didn't know it was going to be blue. Oh, is it actually blue? Yeah. So this is the thing. I didn't know it was going to be blue. So this is where it blew up. Oh, I did. This is where it like went. That's why I ordered it.

This is where it went bad for me. Because everyone's copied me. Kamau's like, no, I'm having something else. And I was like, oh, you don't want to be in the blue crew? Because it was called that. But then they come along and they literally are like neon blue, ridiculous. And I was like, oh no, I don't know these people well enough. Now I've made them all get this blue drink. And started calling yourself the blue crew. Called us the blue crew.

runs there drinking the blue drink. He's not... He's not happy with it. Delighted about it. No. You know, he's trying to keep a low profile. Yeah. He's there with a neon blue drink and he's waving it around. Waving around this neon blue drink. Looks like he's fucking holding the Tessera. Yeah. Yeah. I don't...

You were the Thanos snap to his real life. Everything disappeared after he drank that drink. We all were bummed, I would say. Yeah, no one was happy about it. However, it was so funny. Yeah. As a bit, we kept... I finished the whole thing. I was like, I don't like this, but I'm going to keep

Also, we were committed to being the blue crew at that point. At least I was. I don't know if there's any fake motherfuckers at the table. I was the only one that was intended to be the blue crew. It doesn't sound like Rudd was fully invested in it. No, he was in. He fell in to me. Maybe one foot out at the least. Also, for a full... If the listener wants a full image of who's at the table, I said just like Finn's friend Fred

Fred plays the guy in the first series of White Lotus who goes canoeing, the kid who's doing that. So that's who that is. So that's funnier to me as well. I've made him do it. He loved it. You know he loved it. He's a sweetheart. And then you all bought matching jackets. We did. No, we didn't buy them. We were given... Oh, that makes more sense. It would have been hilarious if we bought them, though.

them though. Because I bet they're really expensive. I really do. If you hadn't been given them, you know James would have tried to make you all buy them. By the way, I would have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You and the Blue Crew. I definitely would have converted. You and Fred would have done it. You and Fred definitely would have bought them. Everyone else, I think I'd lost their trust by then. But you two were still on board. No, no, no.

It's all in your head. It's all in your head, Bluey. Is he Bluey? I don't know. I'm Bluey. No, yeah. We all got our names in the blue. I'm Bluey. Shirt's purple, right? Bluey, Blueboy, Blueballs. Who's Blueballs? Blueballs is, yeah, Finn. And this guy. Very vulnerable to Finn to take Blueballs. Blueboy's Fred. Yeah. Of course. My girlfriend is Bluesy McKeezy. And Paul Rudd is Blowblood. Blowblood? Blowblood. Blowblood.

Oh.

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Ask your veterinarian about Semperica Trio. Tap or visit SempericaTrio.com to learn more. That was all great stuff. Yeah. Whoa, I love the blue crew, man. Blue crew till they die. Now, one guest has definitely been taking advantage of his celebrity status. Have you had a DM from Lisa Fox? Let's hear from Joe Locke.

Is that something that you would do for a restaurant? Would you queue to get a table? No. Normally, we'd just DM them and then they'd give me a table. Yes, finally. It's really good. Someone using the celebrity status. You have to. Sometimes it doesn't work, but it works quite a lot. I respect this honesty. Oh, I also have, this is a, I have a fake email that I use as my assistant, which is actually me on a different email. And

And I use that to get like restaurant things. Cause I've realized that if you are pretending to be official, there's more of a chance that people will take you seriously. Yeah. If it feels like you've got a Lisa Fox, I wanted a name that was slightly maybe porn star, but like still could be a real name. Yeah.

She got me a free holiday. So that was a great one. She's a great assistant. Lisa Fox is great. You don't have to pay her anything. No, I know. It's great. How does Lisa Fox's email manner differ from your own? She says the things that I couldn't say. Like, oh, Joe was unable to do that, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, he'll only do one Instagram story or like really harsh. And then I'll come in like, oh, thanks so much, Lisa. Yeah.

Does Lisa ever say anything about you? Like, oh, Joe can be a bit temperamental. No, but maybe I should start doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's more authentic, I think, as well. Eye roll emoji and stuff like that. It's been a really hard week with Joe this week. Sorry, Joe's not getting back in contact at the moment. Yeah. Are you worried now, though, that people might hear this and be like, well, we know who Lisa Fox is. We're not responding to that. Maybe I'll just change it up. I'll just change her name. Think of another slightly porno name.

It's not Lisa Fox with three X's, is it? No, but it should be. I was going to change it to. But we're not the same person. Yeah. Last time it was one X. Well, I mean, look, what we're very excited about is, well, there's a number of things actually, but Agatha all along, we're all excited about that. Lisa Fox has got you a great job. Has Lisa Fox been working hard with this? She's been using that to get me some restaurants, yeah. Did she, like, email Kevin Feige? You know what? She didn't, but...

She maybe should. Yeah. For the future. I think her and Feige should talk. Or Feige's assistant. Or is it Feige pretending to be someone? Yeah, definitely. I feel like Feige probably does have an assistant. I know he has an assistant. He does. Yeah. Have you met them? I have. Is it Feige but with his cap off so you can't recognise him? I have actually seen Feige without his cap.

That's one of my big things in life. I've seen him without his cap on. Why did he take it off? I don't know. I think maybe because we were at dinner. Respect. You know. Gotta be respectful. Yeah. He's got a really nice head. Has he? Yeah. Why does he hide it all the time? I don't know. It's a power play, clearly. He takes the cap off for, you know, his most valued cast members. I would hope so. Yeah.

So he goes, this is the real me. Did he stare at you really intensely and say, this is the real me, Joe? He didn't. He didn't know. I'm going to be really careful because I really would like him to give me more jobs. Yes. He listens to anything. Oh, yeah. He'll definitely listen. It's like, no spoilers. You might be in trouble now just for revealing that he's got a head. Maybe. I probably will be. Yeah. Everyone will know. Feel the Marvel brain. If he's got a top of the head. Yeah.

Well, we will start with still a spark than water. Joe, do you have a preference? Sparkling, which I feel like I'm the only person under 25 who likes sparkling water, but I find water boring. So the sparkle more gives it like, I don't know.

Some energy. Some fizz. Yeah. Well, you know, young people today, you've got a short retention span. Yeah, exactly. So you need the water to be doing something. Exactly. I need it to keep me hooked. But you were saying that you think you're the only person under 25 who likes sparkling water. I think that... Is it not big with the kids these days? No. Oh, man. I feel like flavoured sparkling water is. Yeah. Seltzer. Seltzer.

because everyone loves a white claw, but not like normal, like a bottle of San Pellegrino. So does it make you feel like older when you drink a San Pellegrino? An old soul. I do. I am an old soul in general though. So yeah, it feels very fitting. Yeah. That's why you're able to pretend to be Lisa Fox. Exactly. I presume she's over 25. Well, yeah, she's in my head. She's like mid thirties and a bit too much filler. Uh,

Yeah. Now this is what I embody. This is what I am inside really. Yeah. That's aspirational. Let's pitch the movie. It's Mrs. Doubtfire for the TikTok generation. You get yourself in a situation where you have to dress up as Lisa Fox. Yeah. So what if that happens? What if?

They want to meet her. You're emailing and they fall in love with Lisa Fox. I have had people ask me how she is when I've like, oh, how's Lisa? It was really great to email her. I'm like, oh, she's great. She's really good. Yeah, you know, she works really hard. A bit too much filler again. She'll get the balance right one day. Oh, Lisa Fox.

What a sneaky guy. We've had some strange people saying strange things in the Dream Restaurant this year. Just listen to this lot. And then he's put, but he has put in brackets, this section's not for the squeamish. But it is for fans of Hugh Davies, Katie Wicks, Stuart Laws, Rick Astley and Robert Popper.

Are you a foodie huge? Yeah, I love food. I got quite foodie during lockdown because I lived alone for like a long time. And then basically as a comedian, all I was doing was basically every day I would get up and I would sort of delete the things out of my calendar. And then I'd get emails, see what they'd...

cancelled inevitably then I'd delete them off my calendar and then I'd have the whole day basically so I ended up making like so much like food like I tried to make so much food so then the next day I'd have something to clean up oh so you were basically giving yourself a chore yeah so

So clean, clean stuff from yesterday. No dishwasher. I had a dishwasher. I'm not doing that because then it's just deleting events off your calendar. Even more. Yeah. I've never, I don't think we've ever had anyone on the podcast who cooks in order to clean. No, but also I'm worried about the next day. So you're cooking one day, eating the food, and then you've got the cleaning up the next day. Are you then cooking on the same day as the cleaning or were you only eating every other day? Yeah, so I'll take, what I'll do is I'll clean in the morning, have a nice long four hour break, start cooking again.

In order to then clean the next day. What sort of food were you making? Was it specifically dirty food or things that crust in the pans? No, it was stuff that I thought I couldn't do. I made dumplings from scratch, which I was like, I don't know if I could do that. But it was really good. I did it. And also, each time I'm obviously making way too much, because you can't just cook for a portion for one person. Actually, interestingly, I would have lunch every... So I'd have...

I'd have my meals with a spider, actually. Interestingly. So, like, there was a spider that started making a web on the table. And I, initially, it was like, let's get rid of that. But I was like, if the spider goes, then there won't be anyone else. Jesus Christ.

So I had lunch with a spider every day. Simon. No, sorry. Sorry, Dennis. Simon was a different thing. What was Simon? Was it the button that squashed it? No, that was Lloyd. Hang on. What? Huge in lockdown got so lonely that he drew a face on a button that squashed like Wilson and he called it Lloyd and he hung out with it all the time. And he pushed it around in a pram. In a pram? Yeah, in a pram. What, outside of your house? Yeah, well, you can get away with it. I was saying, you know, you can get away with anything if you put it in a pram.

I really don't think that's true. No, you can. Go to the park. You're less likely to get away with it if you put it in the pram. Go to the park and see someone with a pram walking around the pram. Yeah. Look at it, right? It could be anything. If a dog's in there, you're like, that's fine. Fine, yeah, okay. If you saw someone with a squash in there, you'd be like, that's fine. Leave that person alone. Don't talk to that person. If it had a face drawn on it. Yeah, I would...

There's something very different between saying you're getting away with it and no one wants to talk to you because you look mad. Yeah. Also, you'll say they're going, that's fine, leave that person alone. I believe they will definitely think, leave that person alone. I don't think they're thinking, that's fine. I think they're thinking, I'm

going nowhere near that person, leave them alone. They're pushing a butternut squash around in a pram. We've also got a lot of questions about this. It worked. It helped you. Yeah, it did help me through, man. So where's Lloyd now? And obviously we're out and about again now. I buried him in the park. You are joking. No, I took my niece to learn about death. I can show you photos of it, yeah. It took his niece to learn about death. Yeah. She was loving it, though. She was digging that hole like it was Christmas morning. How old's your niece?

She was at the time, she was about two and a half years old. Right, so livid that someone else is in the pram, I'd imagine. Yeah.

You've got to walk. Lloyd's going in the pram, but you can have a lift back. Get out of the pram. It's a goddamn funeral. Use your legs. Lloyd is dead as well. Getting to ride in the pram. Was Lloyd dead when you buried him? Yeah, he had a, what we called at the time, he was rotting. I think medically, that's what you say. If you keep a squash for three months, it rots. Yeah. I couldn't do that, man. If I'd drawn a face on something, I couldn't bury it.

Well, that's the thing. I didn't draw on the face. I initially didn't draw the face on for a friend. Yeah. I drew it on because it was so big. I thought it would be comical to anyone. You were living alone. Yeah. You've got to drew the face on it for a laugh. Yeah. Put nappy on it for a laugh. I forgot that detail. So you were living alone. Yeah. Why you got a pram and nappies in your house?

Such a good question. Such a good question that I hadn't even thought to ask. Because the rest of it is so weird anyway. So I was staying at my brother's house who has children. He moved with his...

his mother-in-law's house because they have a bigger house and they have a dog and two kids yeah he was like i need someone to walk the plants i said i would live there yeah i did kill all the plants every every single one including the ones they kept from their marriage they were like furious they were absolutely furious and then even more furious when they're like i can't believe you spent so much time because the squash was there when they were there too yeah that's why we went to the park okay because i didn't i don't want to go alone yeah you know

So your responsibility was to water the plants. You didn't do it. No, I killed every single one of them. Every single one. I have like, honestly, I have like over 50. Instead you were hanging out with a squash. Raising a squash, I'd say. I wouldn't say hanging out with a squash. I'm not. And the spider was in the same house. Spider, yeah. Yeah, we would lunch, we would dinner together. We would dinner together, eating dumplings. The dumplings sound great. We sat around dumplings on three separate plates.

I have no, I'm such a philistine. I have, I have no, I've been to really posh restaurants and I thought it was a bit weird stuff. I was eating quite a lot, like worm salad. I've had stuff like that. Worm salad? Yeah. I want some name of the place, but I went to a very posh place for my birthday. And, um, there was two, I went with, um, the other person with me was vegan. So you got an email before sort of saying, you know, do you want the vegan menu or the non-vegan menu? That was the two choices. So I, I, I'm planning on being vegan eventually. I think we all have to be one way basically, but yeah,

So I'm sort of groping towards being vegan, but doing it really badly. Anyway, so at this point I was, I took non-vegan and I had to take a breath then. It was a really emotional story. And then the food came and I ate this salad and the woman took it away and she said, how was your salad? And I said, oh yeah, fine, thank you. Then she looked down at the plate and she said, oh, you still got some worms left. And I thought I was...

I thought I'd left my body, you know what I mean? And I thought, oh, this is like trippy now. Like what's just happened there? And I looked down and then I saw like three or four worms in the plate. Not like garden worms, like kind of shrub territory. - Little worms. - Yeah, they were little but they were moving, they were dead. And I looked at them and I just, it just took me a long time to take it in, you know, to process what was happening.

And I just said, oh no, I'm done, thank you, and handed her the plate. And I just remember being really pale and shocked. And then the person I was with was a bit sort of, well, that's what happens when you tick non-vegan. In a way, like morally, you're saying I'm up for anything. It's not what happens if you tick non-vegan. You get worm salad. But I took their point that they were sort of saying, well, you know, be a vegan. That's the solution if you don't want secret worms, you know.

To them, it's just protein, it's meat. But I felt a bit violated that I hadn't been told and just a bit sick and a bit confused. So was it like a tasting menu thing where they were just bringing you out? Is that a tasting menu? I don't even know the terms. You should taste the menu so they at least explain it up. Put the dish down in front of you and go, and this is a worm salad. No, definitely there was no prior warning. Yeah, there was no chat about it. You've still got some worms left.

Yeah. And then she saw my reaction. She came back and she said, I won't do her accent, but she said, is the problem that you didn't like it or do you object? Like she was trying to understand what my reaction. She was really concerned by my and confused by my reaction. And I said, no, it's fine. It's just the shock.

the shock of eating worms. I was a bit hungover, I was a bit tearful. I just didn't, I just wanted to have a nice birthday and not be fed worms. That's all I want. You were tearful? Because I was hungover. Because you were crying as well. Yeah. That'll be why she came back to check. I thought the tears would bring the worms back to life and it would all be amazing.

I do want to know the name of that place though because I'd like to try worm salad I'll tell you after also at the end they served for pudding it was tobacco flavoured chocolate which went really well with a cigarette I have to say so that was lovely the joy about that is when you're in a hotel or a B&B they say do you want white or brown bread I'm always back with mixed oh yeah yeah you can have a mixed rack

You can have the Aquadrome white. Yeah. And then the B&B wholemeal. Actually go with the, um, with the seeded sourdough, which is slightly wholemealy. Okay. Yeah. It's not to pick you up on that at all in any way. It's fine. It's your, it's your dream B&B. Thank you. This is a new podcast. What is it? It's the rack. It's toast. It's toast.

But it's sourdough toast. But it's not the Rickmansworth Aquadrome Cafe toast that you have. Yeah, is that the secret ingredient? No. Although that would be very Devin Brown if we knew that. Yeah. Hand you an envelope and it says Rickmansworth Aquadrome Cafe toast. Just checking under my chair for an envelope.

And is the owner of the B&B talking to you throughout all of this? No, they've left me. I've put my earpods in. So they might still be there. Okay, but I'm listening to case files because I'm in town to solve a case. What's the case? As if someone's disappeared. One of you has disappeared and I'm there to save you. Oh, no. Where who? James has. James has disappeared. I've disappeared. In the town? Yeah. So what town is it? It's up in North Oregon. Well, I was never there anyway. No, you were. You were. You were.

You were. James, you're going to need to work on your improv, man. Yeah. Just on stage. I'm not there. No, you are. I've never been there. That's what I'm missing. I've never been there. I've never been there.

That's where you've been tracked to anyway. Yeah. So I'm there to solve the case and Ed can't do it because he's doing Great British Menu or something. Yeah. So I'm not there at all. Yeah. You're in the gravy train. Yeah. Okay. So your dream meal is spending a day in a town where I've gone missing. I love this idea. You've got to solve it. Yeah. So this isn't going to be a meal as such so much as a day of eating while you try and solve a missing persons case. Yeah. But it will fit your format. Yeah.

Yeah. Perfectly. Yeah, kind of. Unless I get kicked out. I like the solving the case thing. Yeah. Oh, yeah? You're not the one who's missing. Or will you be the one who's... Do you know, the only evidence we have at the moment is DNA evidence of where you've been. What sort of DNA? Cum. Ha ha ha!

I knew it before you did it. Yeah, why did the guy ask? Where did you find it? You don't want to know where it is, but some of it's on the ceiling. Some of it's on the ceiling. Yeah, that's mainly where it ends up. Yeah. Like a rocket.

Have you guys been to Japan? Yes. I've just got back. James is going next month. Oh, amazing. Fantastic. Well, I'm sure you're going to love it. You must've loved it. I'm sure. Incredible. Yeah. So I've been a few times and back in the day in the eighties and stuff. And I remember the second time we went first time was just promo and stuff. Second time we went for gigs and,

And the promoter took us to this amazing restaurant in a town, I think, called Nagoya. So, you know, it's still a massive city, but one of the smaller cities, as it were. We went to this restaurant, and I basically think he was just taking the piss. Because we were given these bowls, like a soup, like a clear soup, but something was still alive, swimming around in it. Wow. But didn't have the whole of its body to do so. Yeah. Like tentacles had been put away and things. Yeah.

And that was like a bit of a shock. So I didn't, and again, I was 22, 23. Do you know what I mean? I wasn't, I'd traveled a bit by then and I'd eaten in a lot of places and stuff, but it was still, nothing for that though, does it? That's, that's, that's nothing compared to what happened next. So they brought out these huge fish that were skewered. So they were in like a curve, an arc, you know, tail up and head up. And the meat of the fish had been cut away from its body. Why it was alive. And,

and placed back on the fish so you were meant to eat it while it looks at you. Oh my God. I mean, look, I am not squeamish, but I think that would put me off. I couldn't do that. I mean, like your theory about if the olive oil's good, you know the rest of the meal's going to be nice. When they brought you the little thing swimming around in the bowl, get out. Yeah. Yeah, that alone when you have to make eye contact with the thing you're eating. Get out. It's bloody Marquis de Sade's restaurant. Now, I don't know whether that might even be a thing anymore and whether they're legally allowed to do it. You know, I'm going back 35 years, you know, so it's a while ago or more even, you know.

But I remember just thinking, this is ridiculous. And I was kind of looking at all the other Japanese people thinking, are you going to eat this? Or is this... Crazy prank on the... Yeah. And I've seen prawns cooked on the...

on like a teppanyaki, you know, where they're still alive. They just put them on the thing in front of you. You know, and I know lobsters go in the thing when you're not looking and they just put them in there, you know. Ugh, I don't like all that. Listen, don't get me wrong, I love eating food. I'm not vegetarian. I think about it sometimes and I do think there's an issue, like I said, with us eating

the way we are living at the moment can't really be sustained and all the rest of it. And, um, but yeah, it's a, it's a step. There's a step too far, isn't there? A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I think we definitely have to at least stop making eye contact with the fish while we're eating it alive. Yeah.

Let's at least take that step. Having said that, this is just reminding me of something else. And please, this is not about... Right, here we go. So one of my passions in life has been skiing over the years. And so I was on holiday skiing with some friends and it was a bit of an occasion and we needed to celebrate something. So we went to this restaurant, which again, I don't think is open anymore. Not because of what I'm about to describe. I just think it's not open anymore. And it was called...

my father's farm on, on Firmden, on Pear, whatever. And, uh, massive reputation, you know, Michelin stars, all the rest of it. So we went, it's like a 15 course, blah, dee dah, whatever. But you, you, the building is a farm and animals. I'm not saying those animals necessarily, but in other words, pigs, ducks, uh, you know, geese, cows are on the other side of glass, uh,

beneath you and on the side of you as you walk into the restaurant. So it's basically like saying, but I don't think on the one end there's nothing wrong with actually explaining, especially to kids. Because if kids just think that a slab of meat is just something, you know, they don't connect it to being an animal, that's a whole other issue again. But that was pretty...

That was a bit, you know, I mean, they weren't dragging animals out and butchering them and, you know, but it was still very much like, you've just ordered this and that's one of those over there behind that glass. It was a bit weird. Yeah. It's quite confronting, isn't it? It's good. I mean, yeah, I'm all for it, but I think I wouldn't be able to hack it at the same time. And maybe I should reflect on that. Yeah. Well, I'm not, I don't cook a lot. My wife's an amazing cook, an incredible cook. And it's, it's one of the main ways that she relaxes.

and I don't really love it. Does it stress you out? Yeah. If it's for anybody else, yes. You know, I'm not averse to making an omelette or making something for myself, cobbling something together. But the reason I was mentioning this is that if someone said, right, there's a joint, there's an actual big piece of an animal, make it. Or even a chicken. Getting a chicken out of its packaging from the supermarket and putting it in the oven is a bit like,

Wow. Do you know what I mean? Whereas when it's cooked and it's on your plate, it's just very different. It is, yeah. And don't get those mixed up, Rick, otherwise you're going to have another one of those incidents. You're going to be cancelling more gigs. Yeah. I'm going to start with a Seamour and then I'm going to finish with a La Rosse.

Are these wines? No, I'll tell you what these are. So this is another one from my youth. When my brother Johnny were younger and we used to get invited to parents, like someone was getting married in the family or a bar mitzvah. And I was like 11 and he was eight. We've invented this game, which we do to this day, which is the best game. Yeah. And I think maybe my brother's there for this bit.

Just for when I drink, he appears and then he's eviscerated but comes back. So what we would do, we would be quite, you know, we're 12. We didn't know anyone often. It's boring. And we didn't want to talk to girls. It's embarrassing. There's a family. So we would just go and sit by the bar and just drink Coca-Cola.

And we would, this is our plan. We were sitting by the bar. That's what we would do. Just by the bar or near the bar. Is that a thing kids do normally? Sitting up at the bar? Not at the bar. Like, we wouldn't be at the bar. We'd be on the chair. Imagine you sat having a Coca-Cola like, oh, this is a long night. Cigar. Yeah. We'd hang around the bar, hiding, basically, and have a Coke. And then it would be right. It's time. It's time. So they'd go, oh, two more Cokes, please. No, one Coke and one Seamour.

They go, C-Mal. Yeah, one Coke, one C-Mal. What's C-Mal? Coca-Cola and lemonade. What? Mixed together. That's a C-Mal. Yeah. Oh, okay. So this is pre-internet, so you couldn't check. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. And then you see him wander off, pouring out another bartender would see him mixing lemonade and Coke. You'd see him mouthing C-Mal.

Oh, it could be a drink. So we'd have a Coke and a C-Mao and then it will be later on. We'd have two C-Mao's please. And once they got used to that, the bit when they go two C-Mao's, we go one C-Mao, one LaRosse. Yeah.

So you have to wait for them to... Yeah. What's a La Rosse? Ginger ale and a lemonade. I've never heard of that before. Maybe one C-Mail and that would be our thing. So a C-Mail. And we did that our whole life. And if we ever go out, it'll be like, what do you want? One C-Mail, please. So that I would want to be drinking them. They taste nice as well. Yes. And my brother can be there and we can do that. And there's no internet reception, so they can't check. Yeah, yeah. They're not allowed. I mean, I don't know if they would even check now, would they?

They wouldn't check now. Surely they'd be like, whatever, if they were to call it a two-seam hour. If they were to call it a two-seam hour in La Rosse. Just when they come over, when they would say, two-seam hours? Boys, two-seam hours? No, no, one-seam hour in La Rosse, that would be... That's the high point of the line. And then you end on two La Rosses. Yeah. It's just when they think they've got the hang of it, right? Yeah, and then when they come, are you ordering your stupid drinks? Shh, don't say anything.

So I like those drinks. I mean, they're good drinks as well. There's nothing more exciting as a kid than realising you can mix different soft drinks. Mixing drinks, yeah. Do you ever mix drinks? Nice mixing drinks. Oh, the Freestyle Machine. The Freestyle Machine and the soda fountain. Some fast food places now in London have a Freestyle Machine. Excellent. Where you can just pick loads of other stuff.

I mean, there's stuff that you don't even know, you can't buy commercially by itself, like, you know, peach, lilt, and stuff like that. Yeah. I made that one up. Every flavour of Fanta you could imagine, every sort of different fruit. Raspberry Fanta, all that sort of stuff. Great. Can you mix some of those together? Although... I don't want to mix them if I've not had, like, I just want to try Raspberry Fanta. That sounds good. Yeah. I mean, when you were a kid, you'd mix all of it. That's called a Lombard.

A lombard. A raspberry fountain. A raspberry fountain would be a lombard. Would you ever sign off on this? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We do this all the time. Still do it now? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We haven't done it for a while, but we're going to do it again soon. We talked about it recently when I was telling him we've got to do this again. He said, yeah, yeah, we've got to do that. We've got to do that. I mean, we always talk about it in the restaurant. What do you want to drink? He was going to say two seamounts. He always does that to me. So, yeah. I

I mean, we should start this as a thing. Yeah. People ordering seam hours on La Rosses. I think it almost certainly will happen now. And see if people, please go out there and try it. You've got to start, you don't go straight in two seam hours. No.

You've got to lull them into it. A Coke and a C-Mauer first. Have the Coca-Colas. Coca-Colas. Yeah, Coca-Colas as opposed to Cokes. Two Coca-Colas, please. Yeah, that's what we do. And then eventually, two C-Mauers. That's my drink. And then the high point is when they say two C-Mauers. Two C-Mauers. Yeah. And then it ends on two La Rosses, please. Good night. Now, you know a guest went wild when they have their own section. One guest was not only... See, this is what happens when I actually go off of Benito's script.

Absolutely tripped myself up there. I should have started to describe Benito. I'm so sorry. You're a good writer. One guest not only put an end to the Jollof Wars, but they really put us in our place. It's the beer Libdol Rashid. Your dream side dish. Has anyone here mentioned Moi Moi to you before? No. Really? No, I don't think so. You've had Nigerians on here. Have you ever mentioned Moi Moi? I don't think they have. Bunch of plastic Nigerians. Ha ha ha!

What the hell, man? I bet they came here and then they would somehow talk about Jollof. I'm not even going to talk about Jollof. We often get bogged down in the Jollof wars. The Ghanaian versus Nigerian Jollof. Silly. That's the kind of Nigerians that argue and the kind of Ghanaians that argue about that stuff.

would need Google Maps to find their way around if they went back home is what I'm saying. That is the most basic aspect of our cuisine. The most basic, like it's, it's bloody rice, bro. It's rice. I mean, yeah, yeah,

And the thing is, neither of us invented it. Senegal did. But like, you know how stupid we must look to Senegalese people. I'm a version of this Senegalese dishes. But shut up, man. Honestly, I love jollof rice, right? But it's like African food one-on-one. If I had the friend that I'm not sure of, like he's invited to the cookout, but...

I'm still not quite sure. I would give him jello. Like that's the most basic African dish right next to white rice and stew. Right? It's just basic. And then when I think your levels, then I might introduce you to something like pounded yam and a goosey soup or, you know, something like that. But jello, that's like arguing about who makes fish and chips better. It's the most black...

Black is the most basic dish. I mean, it's good. It's better than all other rice dishes. You know, even Ghanian Jollof rice is better than 90% of rice dishes. Ghanian Jollof rice is brilliant. It tastes almost like the real thing. You know? But...

In all seriousness, it's down to who cooks it. Plus, Nigeria, we've got 300 tribes. Everybody makes it different. I would say ours is the best because we are the closest to the originators, the Senegalese. Culturally, we're very similar to them. But then there's people from my tribe in Ghana too. I make fun of Ghana because it's a national requirement, but honestly, I have no dog in this fight.

Are you a foodie? Bill, would you say that you like food? I mean, you could see me. What do you think? Let's just be real here. You know that if I did something wrong right now and you didn't know me, there's only two ways you would describe me, right? So, you asking me whether I'm a foodie. What's a foodie? A person that likes food. Do you think this happened by accident? Do you think that's what this is? Do you really...

Like, you know, I just had an extra donut a couple hundred thousand times. By the way, I don't actually eat donuts. No. Because of toxic masculinity. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Why is that? So, I'm from northern Nigeria, and...

Sorry, that's for my people. Yeah. You're safe now. When the revolution comes, we'll be given a head start and a stick. Also, I'm from northern Nigeria and we are like most of the army for the majority of Nigeria's inception has come from my part of Nigeria. Most people don't know much about us. In fact, sadly, currently we're only known for two things, which is Boko Haram and me. Uh,

You know, as you can imagine, Boko Haram is a very tough act to follow. Yeah, yeah. Very, very, very tough act. You know, they always bomb. Cheap, I know. So our culture, probably, we're farmers and soldiers and that sort of stuff. So everything around our culture, like growing up as a young boy, like you get given food to make you strong. Yeah. What? What?

it will make you strong. Why are you opening your eyes? Why are you saying that? Because I'm strong. I don't want, you know, and if you eat anything sweet, you were told as a boy that sweet things were for girls. Oh,

And like people would say it with so much conviction, like it was scientifically proven. What? Why do you want that sweet? What are you, a girl? I'm not a girl. Yeah, then why do you want something sweet? Because everyone knows the sweets are for girls. Right. Yeah, you give it to them on their birthday when they're angry with you. That's how it works. And I thought, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, yeah. So growing up, like,

We just didn't have a lot of sweet stuff. Right? So now, even now, because like my wife is South Asian and they have like a big culture of desserts. I kind of hear my uncle in my head. What are you doing? It's a trap. It's for her. You know what I mean?

So, yeah, I'm working through that. But unfortunately, I struggle with sweet stuff. I do like sweet stuff, but I feel bad even though I shouldn't. Yeah. Oh, it's interesting. Yeah. It's been drilled into you. It's a tense episode for me that I'm a big dessert boy. Yeah. I love it when people make a good... No such thing as a big dessert boy in northern Nigeria. Yeah. There you go. It's not...

I get turned away. That's a big dessert boy. I'm trying to think how I would even translate that in my language. Actually, yeah, probably I won't say it, but yeah. Probably a couple words for that. Incidentally, the video of Nabil's answer to that question is our most viewed clip ever. I didn't know that. No, me neither. It wouldn't be a food podcast without delicious descriptions of dishes. Most of these are edible. Sophie Willard. Oh yeah, okay, cool. But it doesn't write who says what.

And we have to sort it out in real time. Yeah. Sophie Willan, Josh Whittacombe, Amy Annette, C.J. Monica Jackson, Karun Gokhani, Danny Dyer, Robert Popper, Rukmini Iyer, Jessica Hines, Stuart Laws, Rose Matafayo, and Jason Manzoukas.

Either that or Ye Olde Pasty Shop. Ye Olde Pasty. Yep. Which, again, do the best pasties in the world. Right. I really feel strongly about this. Yeah, yeah. It's been going, this business, for hundreds of years. You'd hope so if it's called Ye Olde Pasty, right? Ye Olde, yeah. Well, it's in an old Tudor building. It's a listed building in Bolton. Yeah. So, obviously, that's been there a long time. And then this pastry business has been going, like,

200 and something years. It's got a year old pasty shop. The queue goes round the road. It's run at the moment by a woman in her eighties called Mary. She's fabulous. And she's actually got a sculpture of Alma in the, in the window. Oh really? She tried to give me and I was like, Oh no, it's great here. Cause what do you do with the sculpture of yourself? It's weird. Yeah.

Anyway, she's brilliant, Mary. She's been there years. She's had all sorts. Every time you go in, she goes, oh, Ringo Starr's daughter has been ordering pastas. That's true. She gets them shipped over to Paris, I think she's in. Wow. PTK obviously comes in. He parks outside. He won't come out. She comes out for him and brings him loads of pastas. Every time I go, she makes me a pasta with my name on it. It says Sophie on it. It's a really big one. But then she insists that we do a photo shoot. Oh.

So she gets out this little red carpet and the banner and I have to hold the pasty like I'm Winnie the Pooh. Yeah. Which you have. Yeah, yeah. To be fair. But to be honest, the past is more impressive. It's brilliant. But I say, you're qualified to say that it's like Winnie the Pooh. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Do you have to cue now? I always cue anyway. Even though there's a sculptor of you in the front window, you're still cuing. If you don't cue, you end up chatting to her for like 50 minutes. Yeah.

She's like, Sophie, come round the back, come round the back. And then I sit there with a cup of tea and we go through every ailment. Yours, by the sound of it. Yeah, what food remedies each one. But she's quite wild. We went to this charity gig together. She was the first one up to suggest a conga. You know, last one on the dance floor. But anyway, the pastry is brilliant. I'll just tell you about the cheese one. Very thin pastry. You've never known anything like it. It's soft and thin. Yeah, yeah.

And then the middle is pure, pure it, is it? When you, potato, onion and cheese. And then it's just, it's a delicacy. There's no pastas like it. I really want a pasta now. I've not had pastas in ages. I've not eaten today. Yeah. That's what I'm realising. Every food that you describe, I'm like, I'm going to have that after the record. I'm going to have a crumb.

Well, I'll have to send you some down, ye olds. Oh, my God. No, we'll make the trip. I'll walk there. Get the trip, yeah. I'll walk there. I won't pollute Peter Kay and stay in my car. Yeah. I don't think that'd fly. Probably not in Bolton, no. He's probably more popular in Bolton than you are. Peter Kay? Yeah, yeah, probably. Possibly. He ain't been on Taskmaster. LAUGHTER

So all that sounds great as well, but you want the potato cake from there or from the other place? Well, do you know what? I think I'll just say in general, we'd go to Ye Olde Pasty Shop, we'd get a potato cake and a pasta. Look, you could have a little potato cake and a pasty for the starter, I think. Yeah, if you want a Ye Olde Pasty Shop. It's going to be very carb-y this, isn't it? We're going to be knackered, actually.

Are we in it as well? Yeah, I thought so. Are we with you at the Dream Meal? Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, well, look, we're very happy to come with you. But sometimes people don't want us to be there. Some people want to be alone. Some people want to have family members there, loved ones. No, you've just said two things I don't want. Alone or with family. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. All right, we'll come along because I do want to try that pasty desperately. It's always nice to take people who have not had one. Yeah. So on Alma, when we were filming the second series...

I know that at 11 o'clock I get hungry because you set off at 5am, they feed you at, like, what, 8am? And then often you don't get food till, like, 3pm. And you don't want to be the difficult diva asking when lunch is, but you can feel that you just...

So I thought, what I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure I've got me elevenses. So I had my driver, Chris, who I had a specific one, so he's my one, and I gave him a kitty for the two months we were filming. And every day, in his little bag, he had a special warming bag for me. He would bring me two pastas, a meat and potato and a cheese potato from your pasta shop.

But then all the crew were like, oh, that looks good. So I was like, well, do you want one next? Before I knew it, I was getting 60 pasties a day, costing me an absolute fortune. We'd stop at 11 and go, cheese and potato this side, mean potato. It was just mad, you know, chaos. Everyone had a pasty by the end. We were all put on loads of weight together. I absolutely love that you're like, well, you don't want to seem like a diva. So I send my driver with a special warming bag. I know, yeah.

I know he makes messages, but you have to do these things. But then if you're buying them for everyone else then as well, you've nailed that. You bring it back around then, don't you? But then surely that's taken up so much time sorting all the pasties out that you may as well just move lunch earlier. Well, no, because Chris is on it. Chris. Chris is on it. Chris fucking knackered by the end of it dragging sacks of pasties behind him. Chris loves it now. Is he filling the car with them? Well, he's not. He came on as, what did they call him? Because he got a good fee. Don't worry about Chris.

He got a really good fee. In fact, I sent a lot of emails making sure he got paid for going above and beyond. You know, he's not just a driver. He's more like my therapist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's lovely. And, you know, he got a new kitchen. Yeah? So he did all right. He did all right, yeah. Unfortunately, you can't use it because it's just full of fucking pasties.

This toast in the dream restaurant. White bread. Granary, I think. Yeah. Granary. I respect that. And I want to cut it myself. I've had enough of going to somewhere, I'll name a shame, Gail's, and them saying, do you want it sliced? Because I just don't. It's too thin.

And if I'm going to spend more than I should on bread, I at least want to slice it. I don't want to get sliced bread. So, but you're annoyed at Gail's for offering you the option. Yeah. Even though they're not doing it and then giving it to you and you're like, I didn't want this. I just don't think it should even be an option. I always get my bread sliced. What? Why? Because it,

it means that I can have a couple of slices of it and I don't feel awful afterwards. Whereas if I'm cutting it myself, I'm cutting doorstep thick slices. Yeah. I'm not very good at doing them uniform. Yeah. You don't need to do them uniform. Live a little. Live with a wedge shape. Just enjoy the difference of life. Look, you two are different. We're still like you. We're different slices. Yeah, you're different slices. There's a doorstep and there's a wedge.

I'll take that. I was a doorstep for the listener. The doorstep and the wedge. Wedge gamble. You want to slice it. How thick are you slicing it then? I thought we were about to move on from this, but actually there's a lot more to take. Yeah, we actually haven't got into the nitty gritty of the toast. I'd like to go thick, please. Yeah. How many centimetres are we talking? Oh, well, what? It's got to fit in the toaster. It's got to fit in the toaster. What? What?

You don't know what I said to me. Right, sorry. Buried the lead there. Yeah, I know. LAUGHTER

Josh Winnicott doesn't know what a centimetre is. All right. What's a sliced piece of toast? One centimetre? No. It'd be less than a centimetre, a slice of toast. Yeah, maybe slightly less. Okay, then probably 1.3 centimetres. Okay. So you're not going big, like, it's got to fit in the toaster. But I do, with sandwiches, I have a big thing about ratios. Uh-huh. I think the filling has come to dominate sandwiches in a way that I think is unhealthy. So you don't like the filling? No. No.

I like, I like, this is more like you'd imagine me, isn't it? Yeah. Absolutely. Perfect. Yeah. In my head, I'm just seeing us climbing the charts. We got him. We absolutely got him. Just let him talk.

Yeah. I don't like the filling in a sandwich. The bread's the best bit. I hate it when there's too much filling, when there's a thick gelatinous cheese. Delicious. It's awful. Like, it just sticks into your mouth. And the bread, it's all about the bread for me. Yeah. Look, bread is, of course, important in a sandwich. Yeah, I'm glad you... Yeah. Of course, I'm willing to admit that.

That's big of you. So your dream sandwich is just like butter and Marmite or whatever? My dream sandwich would probably be... That's a different podcast. Off-sandwich. Yeah, that's off-sandwich. Part of our franchise. I'd love you to start franchising it. My dream sandwich is butter and Tom and Gareth Squares.

I'm glad I asked that question. Had it to go. I didn't even have to think about it. Knew what it was. Salt and vinegar squares with a sandwich. Are you doing it with salt and vinegar squares because you can fit them perfectly into the sandwich because they're that shape? No, I'm not actually, but that is a bonus. I imagine also they're not overlapping, these salt and vinegar squares. No, actually, I don't mind a little bit of overlap. I take that over the fear that there'll be a bit where they're not overlapping.

Like when you do cheese on cheese on toast. Yeah. You don't want a gap. You don't want a gap. I'd rather a bit of overlap than a gap. Yeah. You'd rather an overlap on cheese on toast where one bit hasn't necessarily melted as much as the others. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's an overlap. Don't get me started on people who grate cheese on toast. I think we're good. If we get you started on every single issue, we are going to be here for eight hours.

I think a real theme of this is going to be me realizing I'm not well. Yeah. That happens to some people. Yeah. I was looking through my photos on my phone to remind myself of meals I've enjoyed. Oh, no. I'm not well. I eat so much mortadella.

So much smoked ham of various kinds. Okay, so what I want to investigate is every time you eat mortadella or smoked ham, are you taking a photo of it? It seems like it. It's not necessarily what you eat all the time. That's what's terrifying. Those are the photos I took. We must assume those times I just enjoyed a mortadella, no pics.

sure and even if you are why are you taking a photo of mortadella because i wouldn't say who am i sending that to yeah i wouldn't say it's the most picturesque it's ugly looking thing disgusting yeah delicious mortadella is great oh it's so nice i had some the other day actually from um dalesford oh wow it had pistachios in it oh i actually don't need a pistachio but i'm happy if it's there

It was more a textural thing than a flavour thing. And I ordered some, like it was on Deliveroo, I think. Dalesford on Deliveroo? Yeah, it was on like a grocery app. And I got it and my wife, Charlie, was away and I was on tour, so I was getting back quite late and I'd just be getting back from gigs and having a little antipasti. That is chic. Going straight to bed. Mortadella, bedtime, bye-bye. Mortadella in bed?

I think I draw the line there. I have a very high self-awareness for bleak moments. Sure. And mortadella in bed might be crossing the line for me. It sounds lovely, but you'd have to get up. You'd have to have wipes nearby. You'd have to have wipes nearby. There'd definitely be a bit where if I'm lying on my back eating mortadella where I drop some on my chest and that would feel weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also sometimes there's stringy bits like around the edge that goes in your tooth and you wake up the next morning. And I wake up in bed.

the next morning and there's a bit of mortadella next to me. Yeah. Yeah. Like you killed an eight Charlie. Yeah.

Just because she's quite pink. Yeah, she's quite pink. She's quite pink. She's a pink lady with green flakes. Yeah. She does like lime green clothes. Oh, but mortadella pre-bed. That's nice. So you have done mortadella pre-bed? Oh, yeah. In the house? In the house. In the bed? Not in the bed. But only because my longtime lover, Nish, is weirdly a clean freak. Despite every...

of his personality that you are all aware of. You know, because he's just like a sort of jovial, big energy, hairy, handsome man. You've made him sound like Santa. That's certainly in my head I'm thinking of the Muppet playing the drums. Animal. Okay, yeah. I would. I would. So he would be very furious with food in bed. Yeah, okay. Yeah. If I had my own bed, which I'm pushing for. Absolutely.

One day. Absolutely, I could have food in that bed. Crumb bed. Love bed.

Two separate rooms. Two separate rooms. Crumb bed and love bed. Yeah. And Nish is never going in the crumb bed. He wouldn't want to. So he's setting up residence in the love bed. Yeah. And you're flitting between crumb and love. He can't be in the love bed on his own. That's sad. That's sad. He's got to have another bed. You have a third bed. Well, what does he need a bed alone for? You know more than us. You two know more than me. Well, when we lived in a flat together...

Like maybe worrying? You could go and have a separate bed for worrying. You could have a little worry bed. Yeah, a little worry bed. Love bed is the one on its own. Don't you dare bring the worrying or crumbs into the love bed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also I don't want worrying in my crumb bed either. Especially worrying about the crumbs. That's actually a place of pure bliss. That's the best bed. That's the best bed. My crumb bed.

And in my mind, it's a divan, you know, like a sort of sofa bed, a day bed. Yeah. You know, so it's kind of a reclining energy. Is this where you want to have your dream male in the love bed or the crumb bed? Do you remember in Sex and the City or any New York representation of the 90s, they would always take them to a club called Bed Club?

And there'd be like a big room with lots of beds in it. And if I've made this up, wow, that mortadella has gone to my head. And it would be like the cool nightclub thing to do, sit in a bed, white bed. And I always thought, I actually don't know if I like reclining when food is,

is around when there are other people there. So am I alone in the dream restaurant or is there a blue genie looking at me? Whatever you want. I don't have to be there. I can magic it into the restaurant for you. Magic in and out. Yeah, you need never deal with another person in the restaurant. Then who am I going to talk to about how nice the food is? Yeah, that's true. Who am I going to make the noises to?

You've got to make the noises at someone. Yeah. I mean, I've had some fantastic meals alone, but you are missing something if you're not making the noises at people and then you find yourself, for example, taking photos of everything and sending it to people. Yeah, and I'm with Nish when he's sending those photos to you, so that is bleak. So, no, I don't want to be in a bed, but I wouldn't mind a bed being nearby after. Straight after. Straight after. Yeah.

My favourite dips are Frank's. I like Frank's because it's very vinegary and it makes you sweat from here. I always think that's a good sign. Frank's. Frank's buffalo sauce. Yeah, I wouldn't even describe that as a dip. So this is the level you're operating on now. What do you not describe as a dip? A hot sauce. It's a sauce? A sauce. It's a hot sauce. A jus, whatever you want. No, a dip. I'm thinking you could get a pot of it and then you're dipping it in. I'm sorry, she's done you that. No, a sauce you're putting on top of it. She's absolutely done you that.

You know the difference between a dip and a sauce. Yeah, I do. I think anything you could eat with your tongue is classified as a dip. Right, okay. The tongue is the ultimate spoon. The tongue's the ultimate spoon. Okay, now I fully believe that that is a dip. Listen, since you've chosen categorically a hot sauce, so you are correct, but she'd done you with the shoe thing. Yeah.

Absolutely. Okay, so we're going for buffalo sauce. Buffalo sauce. I like that green dip that you get from an Undine, you know, the wee hairby one. Yeah. It's sort of like an Undine pesto. Yeah. It doesn't taste anything like pesto. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. Quite fresh, quite sort of zingy. Ah, quite fresh, yeah, it's nice. And green chilli in there as well. But a green chilli, love the spice, love the lime pickle also from the Undine. Yes. I wouldn't

Couldn't I be a big woman for salsa or sour cream or anything like that? No. Sour cream, I think, to me is fucking gross. Every time I meet a new person from Ireland who I've not met before, I learn a new phrase that I didn't know existed. And I didn't know I wouldn't be a big woman for...

I've never heard that before. And every time I'm like, I love that phrase, I would like to steal it. I love that phrase, I'm going to get a tattoo. I feel like you could bring that into your lexicon. There are certain things I could get away with saying on stage. Yeah, I think because you've got a bit of a ginger gene about you, you could say any Irish phrase and it would be believable. I'd be like, oh, I'm smart, I'm Irish. Yeah, yeah. That's good. I could get away with that. That's good to know.

I'll get to decide how Ed eats your food. Yes, there you go. So how am I eating the biryani? Well, you've got the biryani. I guess I'd like you to eat it one grain at a time. Oh, no. You've got a banana leaf to play with.

Oh yeah. You can use that. You have to lick the banana leaf clean at the end. Yeah, but you have to eat one grain of rice at a time and then just lick everything else off the banana leaf. That genuinely sounds like torture to me. That's awful. The idea of eating, having an amazing, like, flavoursome meal and I'm hungry and I've got to eat one grain of rice at a time. Yeah. That's like when you were a kid and they were saying chew everything 32 times. Did you guys have

Yeah. There's always these things like chew your food 32 times. I'm in the opposite position. My eldest son who hates eating for some reason, it's really upsetting. He's this five-year-old and, you know, I just finished battles at breakfast with him and give him a bite. And he's got this really good way of hiding food in his cheek. Like a hamster. Like a hamster. Yeah. And, you know, it just fills up. And there are days I've caught him with a slice of pizza there about an hour and a half later.

Like he's gone off to play something. He's gone to a class and he's come back and he's like, he's been eating then. The teacher's like, oh, was he chewing gum? I said, no, it's like, what's in his mouth? And he's like, oh, I've got pizza has now become too dry. Can I spit it out? I said, you should have just asked me earlier. But it's a bit like him. Like I tell him eat fast as we always grew up saying 32 bites. And that was really frustrating. Yeah. You've got to chew everything so many times. I was told that as well. There was no,

No chance I was listening to that. Four or five times at most. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just enough to make sure it sort of doesn't kill you on the way down. Yeah, just to get it down, yeah. Yeah. Also, I can't be counting and eating. No.

Fall asleep. Yeah. Yeah. Forget it, man. Just change its flavour. After like five, six bites, it tastes nothing, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you. You can have as many bites as you like in a drink restaurant. Yeah. Okay. Except him. Except Ed has to eat a grain of rice at a time. Grain by grain, yeah. Yeah, yeah. After slamming a pancake into my face with all the filling on my hand. Yeah. Pancake first. Pancake last. Huh? Pancake last. Pancake goes on last and goes in your mouth first. Right, okay. Yeah.

So important. Yes, thank you. Actually, maybe the banana leaf. Do you want me to wear it like Baloo? Yeah, I was going to say. Do you want me to wear it like Baloo? Yes. Yes. Can I leave the restaurant in this situation? Are you much of a foodie, Danny? I eat a lot of shit. So I don't know much about food, but I realise I do eat a lot of shite. And I always have. I don't know why. I don't know why that is. I just...

you know, that quick fix of just flavor. Yeah. You know, that's the game I'm in really. I can, uh, I can quite easily, uh, just, just, just fly for a pack of, uh, you know, them sort of, uh, the processed cheese, but, but the dairy Lee ones, you know, so, you know, it's better than a triangle cause it's all getting out of the triangle. Yeah. But you know, I can sit on my own, just, just opening them, uh, just smashing them down. No bread, no crackers, slices, slices. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean,

I mean, the thing is, if you're sort of on your set, you're just smothered with all the little wrappers around you, which is no good. And interestingly, it was hot last night and I had a fan on. So every time I sort of took the cheese out of its finger, the wrappers were flying all over the gaff and...

Like Crystal Maze. It's a fucking mess. Like Crystal Maze. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I do eat a lot of processed stuff, hence why I've got a pair of tits. I think that's it, isn't it? First time actor. Yeah. But I think that's the reason for tits in men. I think it's processed food, you know. Processed cheese, straight to the tits. But you think of it as

Dairy Lee, you know, he's had half a chance. I mean, it's better than the other. So it was just a Morrison's one. You know what I mean? Just the sort of really yellery one. You know what I mean? At least it's Dairy Lee. So, so, so in answer to your question, no, I'm not a foodie.

I wish I was. I think as you get older in life, maybe you learn more about grub. It's all about the gut health, isn't it? I know about that probiotic. You just can't be fucked at the moment. It's a science, isn't it? It's a science. It sort of takes the joy out of food, though, if you're thinking about the science. I think eventually I would like to maybe learn about the gut health more. I don't know when. Maybe in between cheese slices, you can Google it and look up. You couldn't have a cheese slice, see?

You know, because it all starts with a gut. So I can't imagine what my guts are going through. And I do apologise. If I had a starter, OK, if I had a starter. You don't have to have one. No, no, no. I've been thinking it through. I would have soup. I like soup. I like chicken soup. I like vegetable soup. But it's weird. I can't really have soup in a restaurant. I feel it's kind of, it makes you look quite vulnerable. You know, just like it ages you 30 years, first of all.

just a hot soup and everyone's looking at you with your soup so that's more like something you have at home with your partner and it's cold and you go nice soup and it was lovely soup yeah and you're just having lovely you just talk about the soup it's a lovely soup that was lovely I'd have that but in a restaurant I don't want to have soup what about it makes you feel vulnerable do you think and why do you think everyone's looking at you while you have your soup I just always feel when I have a soup in a restaurant that

I just look, you know, I just look older. I look, you know, what am I now, 26? I just feel like it just makes you look like an old person having a soup in a restaurant. It's not a good look. I

I think people pity the soup drinker, that's what I think. Yeah, yeah. That's what I'd say. Yeah. I think it's pity. Do you have the napkin tucked into your... But I could choose if no one's there then, couldn't I? You could choose, yeah. I could have no one there. Or you could eat, you know, like the Autolant thing, that French dish where they eat it under a blanket because they're so ashamed by how disgusting it looks. What is that? It's this tiny little bird. Yeah, they don't want God to see them eating this tiny little bird, yeah. What's wrong with the bird? Well, it's just so small and beautiful that it's like...

considered a shameful thing to eat because it's delicious but it's like a whole little bird they're eating it whole so they put a blanket over their head so God can't see them eat it and it's a cooked bird yeah I think well I've never seen it but they eat it whole I think the beak and everything yeah and this is a thing now this happens now I think it's more of a thing in the past but it was on Succession right as well yeah they did it on Succession it's an episode of Succession where Tom Wamsgans does it but you could do that with soup

Yeah, no, I think people would look at me even more. I know they would be looking at me. Yeah. Do you tuck a napkin into your collar? I can't do that. Yeah, that's too... Do you put a napkin in? It's demeaning. It is demeaning, but yeah, I do do it. But I know what I'd have.

Okay. Before dinner at home, around six, I always get a bit peckish, hungry, you know, that word, and I will have a bowl of cereal. Right? This is my dream. This is what I want. Yeah, that's your dream. I'm allowed it, okay? I'm going to have it. I'm going to have a bowl of cereal. I'm going to have a bowl.

Right? Yeah. 50% cornflakes, they're going first. 50% Rice Krispies. Yeah. I know it's fucking mad, but I'm going to have this. Is this what you do? Yeah. Honey. Yeah. I don't want it served with the thing that's shaped, the wooden thing with the thing that looks like, you know, like bees on the end and it drips everywhere. Squeezy honey on it. Cold oat milk. Yeah. And I want that. Now, in terms of soup age... I would really enjoy that. Soup age is 30 years. Yeah. Does cereal have the opposite effect? No.

That's a good point. Yeah, forever young. It would knock a month off. Yeah.

At least. But no one's going to be looking. Yeah. But I could choose who's there, if not. Could I have a button? Like, you know, you see sometimes it says, call for champagne. Could I have a button on it? And it changes the people. Yeah, sure. So who do you want watching you? Well, I know who I want, yes. Yeah, yeah. Because I saw these people in a restaurant and I had a meal about five years ago with Tom Rosenthal and Simon Berg from Friday Night Dinner. We had a disgusting meal somewhere. All the food was awful. It was brilliant. And sitting at a table about four away from us was...

Alistair Campbell, you know, the labourer, with Mick Hucknall. Wow. Yeah. They were together? They were together having dinner. So I want them, but like every table has them, like 20 tables. Yeah. All there, E

having different conversations. I can't quite hear them. I don't know if they're talking about politics or music and it's quite annoying, but interesting. And I'll have them there and they can watch me eat. So 20 tables of Mick Hucknall and Alistair Campbell. Yeah. Yeah. I want that while I'm having my cereal, just so I can tell people afterwards, I had the freakiest meal. I had cereal and 20 replica Mick Hucknalls and Alistair Campbell as well were watching me eat. That,

Are they moving in sync? Are they all? No, they're not moving in sync. So they're all having their own. Yeah. They don't even know. They don't see themselves and go, that's me. Yeah. They're just in like their own little void. Having different conversations. Yeah. I can never quite hear them. Yeah. I wonder what they were doing together. I don't know. Maybe Mick Huckman was the original instead. He was supposed to do the rest of his politics instead of Rory Stewart. Yeah. That was the original meeting. Yeah. Could have been. Yeah.

It could have been that, couldn't it? Could have been that, yeah. Would it be more successful or less successful? I feel like it's the opposing Labour conservative that makes that show work. And you can't have both of them being simply read. No.

Oh, beautiful. I mean, beautiful. That was, I mean, come on. If this was live, that would be it, wouldn't it? That would go mad. And then someone would heckle something about 15 seconds later that's not quite as funny. Yeah, yeah. A Simply Red song that doesn't quite work. The name. I can't think of what that is. Fairground. Yeah. That definitely doesn't work. Fairground. That joke was Fairground. Yeah.

The bowl of cereal, you say 50-50, because it's a dream. Yeah. We can make anything happen. Do you want the divide to happen horizontally or vertically? Do you want it? No, I'm going to go horizontal. Really? Yeah. I would want a vertical. But how do you do that? Well, it's a dream. We may as well just have two bowls. We can make this happen for you, that you've got like half and half, like...

From the top. Well, saying that, when me and Peter Serafinowicz used to write Look Around You, our treat at the end of the day was we'd buy a Mars bar, right, and we'd cut it in half vertically. Right.

And call it a vase bar. And that was our treat. So maybe in honour of that, I should do this. You know, have it vertical. I love the insanity that people go through when they're writing stuff. Come on, you know what it's like. It was our vase bar. We'd have it one a day. He did a thing which was something like, all the fun of a Mars in a mist.

It's like a Mars spray that you spray into your mouth. What does it, if a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play, right? Work, rest and pray.

I was wondering what Avaz did. Yeah, what does Avaz do? Oh, God. Zerk, Vest and Vey. I don't know what it is. I could work out what it rhymes with. You've got to leave this in. This is no way coming out. You've got to leave this. I just don't know, James. No. I don't know the answer to that. I don't have a funny answer to that. Yeah. It's okay. Tell you what, I think it takes a grown-up to admit that.

Thank you very much. I wish more got said. You're a comedy writer, yeah, but you've admitted. Failure. I'm stumped. Pop-Dums or bread? Pop-Dums or bread, Rosemary? Pop-Dums or bread? It's definitely bread. I hate Pop-Dums. They're grim. I hate them. Rare to get hatred for one of them. No, I really hate them. They're so nothing. It's like biting into just, it doesn't taste of anything. It was your, you wanted a flavoured breadstick. I don't want a flavoured Pop-Dum. I just...

don't want a poppadom they're just they're just no very very shots fired they can go in the bin so what are you what are you doing then because obviously you're saying you love you love a bread stick at the beginning of the meal it's nice to you know if it's there if it's there but when the poppadoms are there and there's no other food knocking around are you are you dipping into the pop I'm going to say I'm going to avoid the curry house as well are you just completely yes if the pop

when I was there it's like god I know I'm in here now and now I'm going to have to eat a restaurant curry and you probably get this with any like Indian heritage chef who comes on but you know restaurant curry is just like not what you eat at home it's always like one sauce it's very gloopy like my entire life when friends are like why don't you go and get a curry and it's like absolutely fucking not

Yeah. Or if we have to, then I just, you know, sadly disappointed the entire meal. Yeah. And I don't drink beer either. And I think that goes well with a curry. I can see that they go together. It's the whole ritual of it. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, poppadoms, like they will herald like a poor evening's dining for me. So that's probably why. Whereas bread, on the other hand, is great. And then you get to have all the butter. And again, I kind of keep on thinking about European holidays, probably because I'm so desperate to get out of the house and maybe the country on holiday. Yeah.

But you go on holiday with your mates when you're a teenager and you sit down and they bring bread and then everyone's like, ooh, there's a really nice extra virgin olive oil. I'm just like, no, butter. British on butter. Yeah, I don't want my bread to kind of taste of, you know, like...

Olive oil, grassy notes. I don't want my bread to taste like grass. I just want it to taste like butter, please. Ideally salted. Yeah, I'm always butter over olive oil. But if there is nice olive oil, I still think, you know. And the really green olive oil as well. Are you against that? I'm not against it. You love green stuff. I don't have a specific... Yeah, I know. Not grass. Not grass. Not like a cat.

I don't think I'd want to add it on. I get putting it in a salad dressing, but my palate is not sophisticated enough. I don't think that's the reason at all. I like being sort of like smacked around the face with that flavour, but not kind of grass.

Your dream side dish. Dream side dish. Yeah. Would probably be fried halloumi just comes off the top of my head. Yeah. Halloumi to introduce myself. Let it come off. Let it come off the top of your head. Halloumi to introduce myself. I've heard a lot of halloumi puns. I've never heard that one. Yeah. Enjoy. Because hello me, I hear quite a lot. It's funny how there are certain things, the words that people hear.

And you just can't help but... So obviously when you hear halloumi, you can't help but hear in your head... A halloumi to introduce myself. Someone told me the other day that they can't look at Alien Broadway without thinking about feeling horny. LAUGHTER

And unfortunately, because of the way podcasts work, there will be a large amount of people listening to this now who then will have the same thing. Yeah, that will happen. That will stick in. It will just go in there. Yeah. With both Halloumi to introduce myself and the feeling. Halloumi is something that I, I think that's why I could never not, I could, I could never, like I could never not eat fried halloumi when it's really delicious and juicy and like crispy on the outside. And it's got a little bit of whatever dip, but obviously it's,

Essentially, it would be the sweet chilli sauce. That would be the main thing that you'd want. I mean, I think so, right? We've been very anti-sweet chilli sauce on this podcast. Yeah, I'm still anti-sweet chilli sauce. Wow, okay. Let's go there because I need to catch up. Because that's how they serve it. Fernando's as well with sweet chilli sauce. Okay, and you don't like that? No, I don't touch it. I just love the halloumi. Okay, why, Ed? I can just go straight, just straight halloumi. Yeah, but why? Sweet chilli sauce, you may as well have a tub of jam. I think it's too sweet. Wow. I feel like there's almost nothing chilli in it. It's just pure sweetness.

I kind of feel the same way. But halloumi, to introduce myself. What would you have with that? What would you prefer as a dip? I'd go normal, just straight halloumi. If I'm having Nando's, I can do like a hot sauce with it maybe, but I could just eat the fried halloumi. So here's the situation, okay? Like just for example, just hypothetically, there's a lovely big plate of fried halloumi. It's perfectly crispy. Little ones are a little bit joined. The cheeky ones that you'll go for, it's a little bit bigger. Delicious. Halloumi.

Still a bit squidgy. Glistening. They're glistening. There's a lovely big tub of sweet chili sauce in the middle. You're telling me...

You're telling me... Yeah. You're going to go up to that play of Illumi. Yeah. You're going to pick up a piece of that sweet, juicy, salty cheese and you're not going to dip it in the chilli sauce. You're not going near it. What planet are you from? What is going on there? Why? Why, eh? I just don't like...

Don't like sweet chilli sauce. I think it takes away from the flavour. Talk us through it. When did this happen? Well, when did sweet chilli sauce first become big? Probably the 90s? Yes. Yeah.

So it's probably back in the 90s. Yes. A lot of kids were really into it. Yes. And it just wasn't my scene. I thought, I'm a bit more grown up than this, you know? Okay. Is it because it was sweet? Did something happen? Well, it's just like, to me, like having melted down Haribo's and Sweeties aren't my thing. I'm not into Sweeties. I don't have really Sweeties. Well, you are because you like Sweet Chili Sauce. Wow. Oh, halloo me to apologise on his behalf. Ha ha ha.

You should not have said that. You're a guest on this podcast. So when did you stop liking sweet things? Oh, so I'm type 1 diabetic. Okay. But I don't think it has anything to do with that. I like sweet things. I eat desserts. I enjoy sweet... But I don't like pure sugar sweet things. I don't know if that's connected to my type 1 diagnosis. But also...

I just think it's a shame. I like spice and I feel like the sweetness in the sweet chilli sauce outweighs the spice too much. Do you think it's a bit patronising to the chilli? I think it's patronising to the chilli. I think that people eat it, they're like, oh, I'm having chilli. You're not. You think that's what people are thinking? You think... You lot.

They're eating the sweet chilli sauce and going, I like spicy things. You don't. You're eating jam. Maybe they're just eating it. Maybe they're just not thinking, I like spicy things. They're just enjoying the sweet chilli sauce. That could be happening. But it does not in its head. Yeah. Because...

The thing is, is I wouldn't normally have sweet chili sauce on much else. But when it comes to a fried halloumi side with sweet chili sauce, there's no way I'm not going to dip that halloumi in there. There's just no way. Yeah. See, I'm not, I'm not even going to dip it. I had some halloumi fries recently at a festival. How were they? They were really good. Do you know what I did? I got a dip. Okay. Yeah. What was it? Garlic mayo. Oh,

How do you feel about that? I feel that is a fantastic idea. Yeah, it was. That was good. I didn't know what that OK signified. And it was double dairy, which felt weird. I double dairy you to eat that. It does elude me still. Elude me to double dare you. So that was good. But there was sweet chilli available and I didn't dip. Do you know what is delicious is real mayonnaise, like homemade mayonnaise, like actual mayonnaise that isn't. Someone panic bought eggs in the pandemic.

That was Holland days. That was the Holland days. That was the Holland days months. Exactly. But yeah, no, I can see that. Yeah. Like, oh, lovely. I mean, lovely, good Mayo. I mean, who's not, what, what is not to love? I'm going to counteract what I said a little bit here. Isn't that a bit cloying though? Sorry. It was a bit, it was a bit claggy. Wow. Okay. Thank you for, thank you for admitting that. Thank you for being honest about that. I love you very much.

Well, then I'll just try my own one. That would be very nice. And I'd like to eat it too. Yeah. I think it's closed now. The Ginger Man in Boston. They had buttermilk chicken sliders with hot sauce and pickles and then roasted Brussels with a balsamic reduction and bacon. So that's... That'll be one dish. That's one... Yes. I'll let him have that. Yeah. Of course you would. You're the Ginger Man. Yeah.

But case closed. Yeah, chicken sliders with hot sauce and pickles. Perfect. More and more in my life now, all I want my food to do is just tear my mouth apart. Yes, yeah, yeah. And then the next day, tear. Yeah, oh dear. The other side apart. Yeah. Dick.

I want my food. To tear my dick apart. Having a piss the next morning. Oh, fuck, I had a carry last night. Christ. Jesus Christ, the pickles coming out of it. I've really got into just having a big jar of pickles at home lately. Yeah? Have you? Yeah. Just started doing it. My dad was obsessed with pickles as a kid. It sort of put me off them a little bit. Oh, really? Yeah. You'll love this. I worked with someone recently who's so obsessed with picklebacks that if she goes into a pub with her friends and...

They don't have the pickle juice to do picklebacks. She'll go to a supermarket and buy a jar of pickles so she can use the brine. And someone texted her and said, have you been in this pub recently? She was like, yeah, how do you know? She went, I've just found half a jar of pickles in the toilet. That's why the backs of toilets are often covered so you can't put your pickles down. That's a deleted scene from Godfather as well.

But there's a pickle box he goes in. They've got it taped to the back of the seat. Don't worry. Are you just dunking in your fork trying to, like, spear one? If I'm eating something already and I've got a fork handy, but otherwise I just put my fingers in. Really? Yeah. No one else is eating those pickles in the house. I'm the only one who's into them. Private pickles? Yeah. Is he on the case as well? Yeah, he's private pickles.

of pickles. He actually didn't get accepted by the army so he's staying nearby and he keeps doing the test to get in but he can't get in. It's a shame. For Halloween would you do that big bowl of pickle brine and then pickles in it and then dunking in to try and get a pickle? Well,

it's a complicated question. If I walked into a Halloween party and that was already set up. Yeah. Yeah. But you're not setting up. I'm not, I'm not doing that. No, I'm not. I don't want to do it enough that I'm going to do it. Cause it's a statement. If people turn up at yours and you've set that up, well, you're not having anyone over for a start. I wouldn't want to, but like,

If someone was like, yeah, you've got to do this, I'd be like, forget it. But if I walked in and it was just there, and people were like, we're all doing this, do you want to bob for pickles? And before they even look back at you, your head's fully submerged. Yeah, I'm all in. And I'm definitely getting one. Yeah. I'm definitely going to get one. I'm not going to not get a pickle. Yeah. It would have to be different size pickles as well to make it harder for some people. Those little tiny ones. Cornichons.

Cornichons. Yeah, yeah. Those big ones you get in petrol stations where you get one pickle in the packet. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I bought a couple of them for my sister's birthday the other day. She loves them. Don't understand. One of them's called a sour sis. I don't know why you're both looking at me like this. Did you buy her anything else? Yeah, I got her tickets to Groundhog Day. No one's ever bought that present. Tickets to Groundhog Day and two big pickles.

as my starter, I choose a Japanese wax figure of food. Okay.

Oh, my gosh. So I'm choosing wax. Now. I can't answer any more questions. You've been in. Now, you have been into these things for a long time. Yeah. Wax or resin. When did you get into the wax foods and watching videos of them on YouTube? So probably from a long time ago. I think Werner Herzog actually did a documentary clip about

about this that was on early YouTube. Since then, a lot more content is on YouTube about the Japanese art of making fake food. You guys will know this. You've both been to Japan this year. Also, I'm married to my wife. This is

This is true. I've seen it happen. And also we have a big melting wax ice cream on our mantelpiece from Japan. Well, they have, wax is sort of an old, more old school version. I think this is resin maybe. This is resin, yeah. So the most popular YouTube video is watching people make lettuce.

But it's just, it's honestly one of the most beautiful things to watch. It brings a tear to the eye. Are these the same things that, so there's a video that my wife Charlie watches a lot and is like, oh, come watch this video again. Amy Sedaris is obsessed with fake food. Yeah. And has a whole house full of fake food. Yeah. And Charlie shows that to me as if like, oh, this is what I want to be.

I want to be this lady. I'm like, I don't see anyone else living with that. I would live in, I would live with Charlie. I think we've got that in common massively. But it's fake food is so, so, oh, it's so exciting. I mean, for those who don't know what I'm talking about, it's in Japan, right? Instead of like menus, sometimes in the windows, you make fake versions of the meals and they're just so accurate. It's insane. And they used to do it out of wax. Now they do it out of plastic. But,

But, yeah, the process is absolutely incredible. There's districts in Tokyo where all of the shops just sell those things. Yeah. And it is fun to look around at them. Yeah. I do like it. And I really like the pint glasses with the beer pouring into it. I really like that one. Yeah, yeah. Can we talk about for one second the damn bowl of ramen noodles with the chops going up and down outside of restaurants? Yeah. There's one in London. I think there's one in London. There is in West London. Yeah. Yeah.

Outside Japan, the Japan store. Yeah. Yeah. Do you like the, I can't remember where it is now. You two might remember. There's a statue of a boy running away from a dog and the dog's pulling his trousers down and you can see his butt. No. There's a statue outside a restaurant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't see that statue when I was there. That's great. We went back there. Did you guys go to the Cup Noodle Museum in Osaka? No. They've been there. That's cool.

You can make your own cup noodle. Yeah. What did you put in yours? Corn. Yeah. Spring onions. Mushrooms, maybe. I didn't, I never ate it though.

No, you prefer a fake one. I did get a candle that looked like a cup noodle. Well, there you go. Another wax food. 100%. So yeah, if someone brought out a cup noodle looking candle, wax candle for my starter, I'd be like, that's really it. So hang on. So we've discussed it now. So now I need to wrap my head around this. Yeah. You don't want a starter to the extent you'd rather just look at something that looks like food that you can't eat. I want a novelty. You want a novelty. I want a favour, a party favour. So you're taking this home with you? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, okay. And what is the food again? The wax? Yeah, that's a really good question. Maybe just a lettuce. A head of lettuce. So not even something that would be a good starter. I think, though, it works. Have you ever seen Rose watch these videos? No, I'm not sure. I've seen Rose watch these videos. And I'd say it's as much pleasure as people get from having a starter. Because...

I know. I saw it once. Yeah. You were sitting there with your hands folded across your chest. And every time they made a different food, Rosa would go, lettuce. Ha!

Cucumber pickle. I just would say it to herself and it was calming and really to see that she's in a very happy place watching it. So do you want them to bring it out and it's made or do you want someone to come out and make it in front of you? That's a great question. Yeah, that's actually true. I want to see it made.

To be honest, maybe I just want a YouTube video. I want an iPad. No, this is a dream restaurant. We can bring you out an expert on that. I can get the guy. Yeah, you can get the guy to make it in front of you and then you can sit there and silently go, ladies...

You know what I've upgraded to? I've upgraded to a YouTube account called Dancing Bacons. It was a man who goes around and goes to the most interesting vending machines all around the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's all point of view. And he has not one negative review of any of the foods that he eats. So my favorite ones are when he goes on a Japanese overnight ferry and he only can eat from the vending machines. And it's very silent. And it's just so... It's the most...

It's like a brain, it's like the washing of my brain to watch a man order things from a vending machine. Just eat it and enjoy it. Oh, man. Yeah. But I think for the purposes of the restaurant, I want to see a man come out, make me a full lettuce, chop it in half.

I want to see the cross section. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I want everyone to clap. Everyone? Yeah. Who else is there? I don't know. A round table. A crowd. A crowd. A crowd has gathered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course a crowd has gathered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we see you make the knife hot. Cut through the lettuce. There you go. And that's your starter. Hard to beat. I don't want to say it earlier, but hard to beat.

Your dream main course. Now, I'm looking forward to hearing both the shadow. But we're out of the shadows with that now. Wait, so my question is this, gentlemen, and here's my question. Yeah. I think there needs to be an option for a middle course, like a pasta course, a secundi. You can do that. Okay. Yeah. I would like the pasta that Steve Coogan's daughter makes. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Because listening to the episode where he described the pasta that she makes that he wanted, I was like, oh, I want that too. That sounds fantastic and light and clean. Perfect for like a mid meal plate. Yeah, I want Steve Coogan's daughter's pasta. And I don't mean that in any gross way. So don't come at me for this. It's the pasta from the episode. I want that pasta.

Is this the first time a guest has directly taken something from another guest stream menu that they haven't had? I'm very happy. I'm glad. I even considered this as a menu hack. It's quite exciting. I'm delighted. I can't even remember what the pasta was. It was like a very...

Like I said, it was like a very light, simple pasta that had like, I think he said broccoli or it was like with greens. It had like a, it was like a, almost like an ugly oleo, but with greens. It was not a heavy sauced pasta or anything like that. So I was like, oh, that sounds great and perfect for, cause I would like my main to be a steak.

You know, my main is going to be a steak. I want something light. I don't want like a heavy meat sauce or a, you know, some sort of like real beefy pasta. I want something light. So that's, I thought that was a great pasta when he said it. So I'll take it. Do you have the shadow? So couldn't be such a good question. Of course I do. Yeah.

I feel like my shadow secundi would be like, because the other thing that I'm missing, which I would love that is a little bit more of an appetizer, is a charcuterie plate. Yeah. The shadow meal is little bites, is more like pita, hummus, Greek salad, like to me charcuterie with some pickles and some, you know, all that kind of, that kind of a plate I love, but not so much cheese. I'm not a big cheese person. Makes me quite gassy.

Is it too close to egg in your mind, maybe? No, because I used to be able to eat cheese, but now it just upsets my stomach. So I just have to steer clear of it. But I love cheese. It's great. But it really is. The older I get, the more my stomach is like, we'd really rather not. Yeah.

You know, this is not for us anymore. We don't do, can't do dairy anymore. Can't really do anything that really challenges my stomach very much. Yeah. So the charcuterie shadows secundi. I think so. Can you say that really quick? The charcuterie shadows secundi. Yeah. Can you tell this guy? I'm having a great time. He's acted with the best of them. Yeah. You give him a line. Oh, I can do it. I can do it.

Secundi shadow. Wait, what was it? Charcuterie shadows secundi. Yeah. Charcuterie shadows secundi. Oh, yeah. You got the full range. Oh, yeah. I'm really excited that you've taken something from another guest's menu, especially because, like, I know that Steve's daughter will hear this podcast. Yes. Oh, great. And it will be a nice surprise. Oh, I hope so. And it sounds like you're making a wonderful pasta. So congrats. Yeah. Congrats.

Lovely stuff. James' Diet Coke story hasn't had much airtime this year, but he did get a chance to tell it to Killer Mike. And he didn't give a shit. What a cruel thing to write. He's just absolutely delighted with himself sitting in his little chair right now that he's written that. Yeah, he didn't give a shit though. But it made me laugh that we had Killer Mike on. Yeah, that was funny. Yeah. Funny that we did that.

I definitely feel one of those big, but you can't have a big, those big whiskey cubes. If I saw that in any other drink, I wouldn't be able to take it seriously. Someone gave me like a Coke and it's got that. Are you kidding me? I can't. This is true. Cokes. I've broken an addiction to, I literally just loved Coca-Cola and I'm from Atlanta. Yeah. I'm a Coca-Cola. So I haven't had a Coke since when?

It's December 31st last year. Wow. Yeah, I haven't had a Coke. So it was a New Year's resolution, was it? Well, I just was like, man, you got to break the Coke. You know, you got to break the Coke addiction. So not even a resolution. It's just like, let me see how long I can go. I did cheat once. I had a float. So I do like vanilla ice cream. So I did do that. Well, that's difficult to resist. Yeah. How could you not have a float? Yeah, that's real. Also, then it's a dessert.

right? Yeah, I did it as a dessert. I did. That's the equivalent of like one big ice cube. Yeah. That's as close as you'll get. That's it. That's fine. I don't think that even counts as cheating on. Yeah, I did that. I did. I felt, I felt my stomach hadn't had a Coke or ice cream in a minute. So I spent the rest of the day in the bathroom. Yeah. I was literally just looking like this, like, damn, it was worth it though.

smoking a joint on the toilet in a hotel hoping I don't get charged for it. The same guy from the lake. Hey, I go to the front. I know Benito. You want problems with me and Benito? I once didn't have a Coke for five years. And then I started drinking Diet Coke.

Now diet Coke tastes exactly like Coke. I don't, I won't do Coke diet Coke or Coke zero Coke zero. I will say got the taste of Coke better, but, but when it's like us, like, okay, Coke is sugar. Fructose is not, but then you'll, you'll, you'll be on the internet and they'll say diet Coke, even worse than Coke. It makes your balls fall off. And I'm just like, what? Like, why does diet soda kill us quicker than regular? So, but yeah,

People get weird about artificial sweeteners, right? Yeah, they do. I've never heard the theory that it makes your balls fall off. Yeah, well, I mean, basically that's what this one said. And I was just like, well, I want my balls, so I'll probably just drink more water, eat watermelon. I think your balls fall off, and then rich people use them as ice cubes. Yeah, that's usually how I would imagine. I would imagine evil bastards. But listen, there's one thing I love, and it's puddings. Yes.

Read it out. Stick to the script. Sorry, stick to the script. But if there's one thing James loves, it's puddings. And he loved the idea of a dessert hype man with Carrie Brownstein. But I think there should be a rule that once you've ordered the desserts, and then between ordering them and the desserts coming, don't talk about desserts in anything other than a positive way. Don't sit there talking to each other

Because then it's almost like the guilt sets in as soon as everyone's ordered the desserts. They all think, oh, man, we shouldn't have done that. We had a massive meal. We shouldn't be eating this much more. And when people start doing anecdotes about, oh, yeah, because I had this once, but I'm trying not to now. And now I've found that if you just have a little bit of something and then you just put it back in the fridge, and then you start talking about those kind of things with one another, so you're already basically making...

making yourself feel bad about it yeah and then the desserts turn up and you're like well already hate myself for having this now whereas we should have all just gone you know what i love i love ice cream so much i can't wait for this that would be a much better chat but instead you have this like diplomatic conversation about desserts which just ruins it ruins the fun so you want those five minutes in between ordering and

the arrival of the dessert to be more hype oriented. Yeah. Like really just getting everyone extra excited about what's about to happen. I also get annoyed by the person or people who claim that they don't want the dessert. They're just going to have a bite and then they eat half of it. And even having a bite is annoying, isn't it? I think, yeah. If you're opting out, opt out fully. I need you to commit to

to this hatred of dessert. Because now I feel like the dynamic, there's something just really complicated there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then they're bringing their issues. And you've got that in the back of your mind of like, how much are they going to have? And then that stresses you out and then you can't enjoy the dessert. Yeah. I love the idea of hyping the dessert. Is it possible, do you think, to have a restaurant where there's a dessert hype man? And that's his only job. Maybe not his only job. Someone's ordered dessert. Maybe.

Maybe he's the doctor again. No, he's not the doctor. He's a dessert hype man. He's very specific. He's learned his craft. I love that he sort of shows up in a cape at the table the second you order dessert. It's almost like he magically appears and he's just leading you in little cheers. I'm imagining Paul Scheer for some reason. Oh, yes. I was thinking about Paul Scheer earlier in this episode. Were you? Yes, because when Cammie mentioned sushi, every time people mention sushi on the podcast, it reminds me of Paul Scheer. And I think about Paul Scheer.

Paul Scheer because I remember him telling us that he would go to a place and get this sushi that he loved and this man he was such a regular and the man loved him so much that he gave him a sake cup that he had written Paul's name on it in what I think was Japanese and Paul was like it means a lot to me that cup and we said do you know that it says Paul Scheer it might say Paul Scheer drinks piss

And Paul Shearer was a wonderful guest and we had a lot of fun with Paul but when we made fun of his sake cup he did not like it. It ruined his day. We spoiled a nice thing. He was so proud of that sake cup. We spoiled a nice thing in his life. So it always reminds me of him a bit with his sushi. I just think Paul Shearer drinks piss but like I like him.

Nice man. But definitely, yeah, he'd be a great dessert hype man. He'd be great. You're ready for dessert. Yeah, yeah. Also, like, because what you don't want, Paul Scheer, I'd say, looks like someone who I'd be like, yeah, that guy, believably, does like dessert, but also, it's not taking any toll on him. He looks healthy. Right. But he doesn't look too healthy. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I wouldn't want frigging Mario Lopez coming out

and tell them this dessert's going to be great. How the fuck do you know? I'd love Mario Lopez. Yeah, eat desserts. I would love if that's what Mario Lopez was doing these days. Yeah, yeah. What a joy to go to a restaurant. Maybe you go specifically for their dessert hype person. Yeah. It becomes like, oh, well, this restaurant has a great dessert. It's got Mario Lopez. Yeah, it's got Mario Lopez hype machine. Flips his chair the other way around. Oh, yeah. A little massage to get you ready for eating. Yeah.

give it hand massage so that you're ready to really use that spoon. Preppy. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. You have a nickname. Yeah. Come on Brownstein. I guess that is a different, a different kind of hype. He's getting you physically. Um,

I was thinking someone coming up going, this dessert is going to be so great. We all love dessert. It's brilliant, which I wouldn't believe from him. Yeah. Lopez isn't eating enough desserts. I don't think. But if he was training me up like he's a boxing coach, then fair enough. I'd be like, yeah, this is going to be great. I think we're each imagining something slightly different, but I feel like each hype person would have a different technique. So yeah, you go to a restaurant and you would know that this one was more like a

coach another one was just more like singing the praises of the dessert portion of the meal yeah yeah i guess i want someone who's like we all made a great decision here today this is so great like you guys rule from making this decision to order the dessert you want a life coach basically yeah this is so great i want paul sheer to be like whose idea was it to get desserts this guy fucking the amount of applause for this guy this is so great

You just want to be popular. But you want to be that guy, clearly. You basically want to be validated in your decision. You should just bring Paul Scheer with you to every restaurant. Yeah, but he hates us because we said he drinks piss. So we ruined that. Yeah, but after he's had a few shots of piss, he's good.

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Wait, where are you going? To save you up to 89%. Pirateship.com will save you money on shipping. Savings vary depending on weight, dimension, season, and destination of the package. Another thing we love on the Off Menu podcast is games. James specifically loves games. Yeah, Benito hates them. Yeah, guessing games you like. Yeah. And if there's one guest who likes games more than James, it's Ella Purnell.

My worst thing is imagining someone soaring through some polystyrene. That is bad. It's bad, isn't it? Oh, no, I don't like that. I've done it before. What? I've soared through a massive block of polystyrene with a saw. Why? I had to get a giant polystyrene W into a car boot and I couldn't, so I had to saw it into two Vs. What?

So what are you talking about? I've got questions. Yeah. I was collecting giant yellow polystyrene W's at the time. I was going through a phase. How many did you have? I think we got like five or six in the end. I can't remember exactly how many, but like, yeah, we got a fair few. So when you saw it, you stick it back together again on the other side? We actually didn't end up sticking it back together again. It was knocked around in my friend's sister's garage for a few years. I don't know if it's even...

I bet they were thrilled, that friend. Yeah, yeah. She ended up with, yeah, the one that was in half and another one, that sister. So, like, she had those. You need to find someone that collects polystyrene Vs. Vs, yeah. And donate. Then they would be delighted. Yeah. Oh, that would be the greatest collab of all time. Make that person's day. Now, Ben seems like he has more questions. Oh, he can't ask. He can't talk. Ella said she had questions and then didn't ask any of the questions that I thought you were going to ask. Oh, yeah, so it's a question. It's just that they weren't the ones that you wanted. Yeah, but like, why?

are your questions? Yeah. My question, I've asked my questions like very much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are your questions? Why, why, why did you do this? Why is my main question. Why? Why were you collecting polystyrene dubbing? Oh, right, that is the obvious question. Yeah, of course. I was in

in a band called The Wow Scenario. Oh, right. Oh, it does make sense. Someone told us, hey, I know someone who's got a giant polystyrene W. You can have it on stage when you do your gigs. So went to pick it up and then we went to get it and it was like huge. And we had to like try and put it on the roof of the car. Wow.

But it was like going to fly off and it was very... And then I brought it home... It was quite light. It was quite light. It would have just flown in the air. Yeah. That's what we were worried about in the dual carriageway. If it flies off, you know... Yeah. Really we're in someone's day if that happens. But we got it home and my dad was like, that's not coming in the house. He was like, no, you've got no choice. There's no saying this old man. We're having to do this. And then we were talking to a guy, a local photographer, and...

we're like, here's an idea for our photo shoot we're going to do with you. Got this giant yellow W, we're going to bring it along to your studio. And he went, I've already got one, I don't need it. I'm...

We're like, what are you talking about? You've already got one. And he showed us a picture. We're like, that's identical to our one. And he was like, yeah, well, this connections have got them in their windows. They've got this whole thing for people leaving school about what next. It's this whole campaign they're doing. They've all been given these giant yellow doubles. They all hate them. They don't want them in their shops. They're taking up too much room. So they just gave me one for free. They all just want rid of them. So then...

at the time, me and my friend were like, let's get loads and fill the whole stage with them. Fascinating. And we'll do that. How many did you need though? Because you're called the wow scenario. I mean, it's unbelievable that you've managed to acquire five of these. Yeah, we got quite a few of them and then we kind of ran out of steam and just forgot about it. The band broke up. The band broke up.

And then, like, my friend Ben, who, like, kept at least one of them for us in his garage, moved house and forgot about it. So the people who came in after him would have opened that garage door and been like, what the hell? Who's this guy? I mean, look, there's worse letters to collect, isn't there? I feel like W, out of all the letters, is probably the most versatile. Well, you know what I'm going to ask? What is the worst letter that you could collect? Well, an S can only be two Cs. A W can be an I, an N, a Z, or two Vs. Yeah.

An R is pretty shit. An R could be an I. Could be two I's or an L, I suppose. It could be an L as well. An I. An I is probably... Well, no, there's got to be others. Come on. B. B. What can B be? Two C's, I suppose. A. Sorry. This is my podcast now. We're going to clip this up. This is the rantings of a madman. Like, I've never had a guest do such an unintelligent monologue that sounds so insane.

Go through all the letters and what they could be if you chopped them up. And not in order. Not in order, just all over the place. And just for the listener, we haven't sped it up. That is the speed that Ella was talking at. That was amazing. I'm so, so sorry. I got kind of...

Got kind of excited. But it's interesting. All the letters could be chopped up to be other letters. Yeah. It is interesting. That's why I got so excited because I've never thought of it before. I think C is the worst. C is the worst. That's very smart. C is good. C can't be anything else. C is terrible. No. C can't be anything. Yeah.

C is the worst one. C is useless. Yeah. Sorry. And that'd be the worst one. Like if I was taking that like on top of the car. Yeah. If that blows away, it'll boomerang back to you. You're in big trouble. This is my favourite conversation I've ever had. From games to pranks. You knew this was coming. Sebastian Stan.

absolutely is the original prankster. I don't know if the listeners connected with this as much as we did. We found it so funny that Sebastian Stan loved pranks so much. All we've talked about is how much Sebastian Stan loves pranks. You guys have got to get on board with that being funny because it is funny.

But you are a superhero as well. So you get to experience that. You've experienced a taste of that. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, it's the most gratifying thing in the world. Like when you, you know, when you have like a kid that comes up to you and just like, is that arm metal?

metal, you know, and you're like, yes, of course. But, you know, it's just a camouflage now. That's good. And they're like, oh, interesting. That's good. Cause like recently, uh, as of, I don't know when this podcast actually going to go out, but we lost Maggie Smith and someone told me a story about her when, uh, yeah, a kid who was a fan of Harry Potter went up to her and said, is it true that you can turn it to a cat? And she told the kid to pull themselves together. Yeah.

I've got more respect for that to be honest. Pull yourself together. That's so funny. I would have, I would have, I still think of her as Wendy. Oh yeah. Remember that movie? Yeah. Hook. Yeah. That movie I was obsessed with when I was a kid. Cause I really, I couldn't, you know, I'm like the whole concept of Peter Pan and this guy going back. It was just so great. Well, that's come up on this podcast a few times because of bangarang.

vaccine when they're eating, especially when there's nothing. It looks delicious. No, no, no. For sure. As a kid, all the colors and everything in there, you're like, what is that made of? Yeah. Did you ever want to eat Play-Doh when you were a kid? Yeah, big time. Me too. I don't know why. I would have loved to have eaten it. It looked delicious. Yeah, when I still see it, I'm like, oh, you could squeeze it. Because it smells...

It smells kind of nice as well, right? It smells like sort of clean and you do want to see what it tastes like. There's flavours. We did a live tour of this podcast around the UK and we would ask the audiences their menus and

read them out they'd write them before we went on stage we'd pick them out and read out the best ones and one person for their dream drink said they would like the fruit shampoo they use but it has to taste as good as it smells and that got an applause from the entire room yeah the entire room was like yeah I'm gonna drink my shampoo if it didn't that might say more about our listeners than the sort of UK populace as a whole but yeah we a lot of shampoo drinkers listen I think it would pair nicely with some play-doh yeah

The only thing I can think about with shampoo is that prank I've seen on YouTube at one point where they go around, there's a guy kind of washing his hair. He doesn't know that there's someone above him that keeps squeezing shampoo.

He keeps trying to get the shampoo out. It's like a nightmare. You can't get it out of your... You know what I mean? It just keeps going. I'm not saying that. I'm going to watch it as soon as this is finished. You have to. Shampoo prank. I mean, it's just so... I feel like you guys would be great at pranks. We'd be good at pranks. We love Jackass. We love Jackass. Steve-O was sitting in that seat. We've watched it since. But Steve-O, we had Steve-O in it. What a voice, right? Such a specific...

Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every time I'm watching anything with a min or whatever, my, my, uh, fucking hell, what a Freudian slip. I was going to say my girlfriend, but I went to say my sister. What do you think about that? Don't ask James about his cheat days. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, my girlfriend always, if I'm watching the Steve-O thing, says from the other room, is that Whoopi Goldberg? Yeah,

When Steve-O was on the podcast, we had loads of people saying he sounds exactly like Whoopi Goldberg. I never, ever thought. I never made that connection in my head until now. Maybe that's what I'll be doing after this, going to see how that works. Get someone to send you, and not label them properly, clips of Whoopi and clips of Steve-O, and you can see if you can work out the difference. Yeah, I mean, probably from what they're saying, you better work out.

Once, before we started recording today, you were saying, like, come in and work here, and when you arrive, you're a bit jet-lagged. I arrived in Canada once. I had a gig that night. I was meant to do a show that night, but I missed the show because I'd gone out, got a tub of Ben & Jerry's that you can't get here, and I was like,

and halfway through just passed out on my bed. Because of the sugar high. I was just, I was jet lagged, but also, I was just so into eating this Ben and Jerry's, it put me into this like hibernation state. And I just, I just, that was it. And I woke up, the gig had already been and gone. I had multiple texts on my phone from the promoters and everyone. I just, a Ben and Jerry's tub in my hand and a spoon in the other, just on my bed. That's,

It's one of the most terrifying things. It's like when you wake up and like, you see your phone's just been going or something and people have been trying to get, you know, reach you for whatever reason. But I, speaking of pranks, it's so silly. There's another one I saw recently on YouTube and it's like,

It's really bad. Like these guys clearly have known each other for a long time. I don't even know what it's called, but like they, they like got together and like, they had like a celebration night, you know, taking shots and hanging out and all this stuff. The next day, the guy, one of them wakes up and he's strapped to a hospital bed and he doesn't know where, how he got there. And they're like, you've been in a coma for 10 years.

And his friend comes in in prosthetics, having gained weight. And he's like, you have a son and I've been taking care of him. And he's just, it's, it's terrifying, honestly, but it's horrifically funny. And he, you know, it's like, he just doesn't know what to do with it. Like, um, yeah.

I didn't know you liked pranks so much. They are good. I think, yeah, I mean, I mean, you have to, you know, you want to be safe. I'm not like, but like, it is funny sometimes. You got to keep surprising yourself and your friends. You know, it's like, it's fun to do that. Have you ever played a prank on anyone that's like, that you're particularly proud of? It's so stupid. But, um, I have a friend who, like,

like he always manages, he can fall asleep anytime. I saw him fall asleep in the middle of a nightclub. Like he took a nap and like came back and was like right back as if he got reinvigorated. And I'd be so jealous of him. Cause I'd be like, how do you do it? How do you just fall asleep? Falls asleep very easily all the time. So one time he was staying over, he lives in LA, came to New York and he was crashing over my house and, and he fell asleep. And I took headphones and I put it over his head.

head over his ears and I plugged it into like the fucking speakers and I went and researched T-Rex, like, you know, the dinosaur in Jurassic Park when like at the very end where he's like, and he's like, and the thing falls or whatever. And I cranked that up and I just,

press play, just trying to wake him up. And all I got was just this one quick, like little key to more satisfied than him completely terrified. Just very lazily. Just go. Yeah. I'm like, well, the team ever a fire or anything. Yeah. You're in the house. We'll never make it. That's what he'd be like after the blip. So if he got snapped by Thanos, yeah, he'd just be like, right.

back in hey okay cool okay so okay it was a different battlefield but i pretty much i pretty much got my bearings yeah i've just been napping again

I feel like we should like plan a prank to do on a, on one of your, like maybe we could get Anthony Mackie and we could assist you in pranking him. No, absolutely. Um, what if we do have him on this podcast? Cause he said he'd be really good. If we do manage to book him for this podcast, we're happy to prank him on your behalf. Um, if you do, yes. I mean, then maybe you need to email me and I'll, I'll have to figure out how to, how to do it. But just keep pouring shampoo on him. Does that work? If it's not in the show,

And he can see us? Does that work? No, maybe not. We've got to think. We've got to think somehow. But it's possible. I mean, he'll get me back, or he'll try to get me back. If he gets angry at the prank, you have to admit that you were involved in it. Because if we go, oh no, it was Sebastian, and then you deny all knowledge of it. It would be like...

don't focus on this. Imagine to do this podcast, he has to drive like 45 minutes to a warehouse somewhere in like South London. And it's just in the dark and you guys are sitting there by candlelight. But it should be, if it's in a warehouse, you should open the door and it should be full of people and then you realise it's the rap battle from 8 Mile. Ha ha ha!

And we've set him up. You've got to do it again. And he's got to go up. He's got to go up there. We could get Eminem. Then you could join in as well. Your surname's Stan. Yeah. You could get up.

You've written Eminem, those are letters? Actually, that's when you and Mackie would join forces, surely. Because you both hate Eminem. Your Stan and the guy that he beat in the rap battle. By the way, do you remember that movie, how good that was? Yeah, it was incredible. And also, thank you for reminding me, he is in that film. He's great in it. He's great in it. He's in so many good movies, actually. But that doesn't matter, we're going to prank the fuck out of this guy. We're going to prank him so hard. But that would be...

It would be funny. Like he's just, he thinks he's going to a podcast, but it's a rave. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's got, I mean, hopefully cause like today and, and, uh, you know, this is a trick of the trade that I didn't know. But like someone arrived before you, who's called a go ahead, right. Who, who kind of turns up here first, uh,

Oh, interesting. Which is, this happens sometimes if people are like, you know, have busy schedules and they're going from one place to the other. So with Mackie, I would worry that a go-ahead had arrived there and text him and go, this is a fucking rave. This is not a podcast. They're setting you up for a prank. I think Sebastian stands behind it. Do not come here, Anthony. It just goes to, it's like, I'm just,

recreating that movie, The Game, on him. He's involved in high-speed chase all the way to Mexico. It just goes on and off. I always thought it'd be funny to do a movie about actors that take their roles to the next level. You go really extreme. I still think there's like, maybe you and him should join Fortis and prank Eminem. I think that is, as much as I'd like

Why do I feel like that would fail? Yeah, I don't think that would go well. You never know what mood Eminem's going to be in. But you know...

You can get him. The two of you join forces. I could also see him just unfazed. Yeah. Like the same stoic face, no emotion, and just walk out. I've never seen him giggling in an interview. I don't feel like he would chuckle at a prank. Yeah. Me neither. Yeah, to be fair.

We've had extra surprise guests on the podcast over the years. Rylan's mum, Amy Gladhill's parents, and this time it was Sophie Willan's turn to call a relative. Gee dog!

You'd read desserts, Sophie, wouldn't you? Well, I'd go bread and butter pudding. Oh, yeah. Because I'm sticking with a very carb-heavy theme here. Yeah. Love a bread and butter pudding. My grandad is a really good cook and he used to make bread and butter puddings when I was little. Yeah. So there's a nice memory there with that. It's nice. And it's just lovely. Did he have any particular, like, way of doing it? Was it because it was like... A little signature twist. A lot of different... Some of you have with liqueur in, don't you, or something. He did it like that and...

But you weren't allowed to go near him in the kitchen. He's still like that now. If you go near, get out, get out! He's quite Gordon Ramsay with a Bolton accent and no neck. You know, he's just quite an intense...

So much respect for that though. Yeah. I'm like that when I'm cooking. Are you? Yeah, don't come near me. I'm cooking so I don't have to talk to people. Yeah, I think it's that, isn't it? And then also if you try and help, oh my God, everything you're doing is wrong. Yeah, yeah. You've never felt more that you're a bad human being. So I just have to leave the vicinity. And then at the end I'll say like, do you want me involved in plates? And he's like, get out! So I'm like, fine. Yeah.

But I think especially if it's like, that's like his signature dish, right? And that's what he's really good at. He's made it so many times before. He doesn't need help. Doesn't need help. Well, he's good at everything, my granad. He's a really, really good cook. Oh, fantastic. He did cooking. He went down to London for six months and cooked in a restaurant in London. And then they moved back to Bolton. But,

you know, for that six months, he was a saucier. Oh, lovely. I know. Was he? Just did the sauces? Yeah. So he's very talented, but very grumpiest. I just leave him to it. We get all this lovely food, you know, if you go visit him. But the price you pay, sometimes you might get shouted at if you go into the kitchen. definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

I feel like we've had quite a few really good bread and butter pudding recipes on this podcast. Yeah. And now I want a bread and butter pudding as well. Here's what's going on in my head is that I remember that last time someone came on and they said their own bread and butter pudding recipe and it sounded easy and delicious. And I thought to myself, I'm going to do that. And then I didn't do it. And now I've forgotten what the recipe was. Was it the one with croissants in it? Yeah, must have been. Yeah. Croissants. That's really good.

Another one you mean? They do a really good one in Cumbria with leftover croissants and different things. And raisins. That's delicious. And you know what occurred to me when you said bread and butter pudding? Imagine making bread and butter pudding with the crumpet bread. Oh, wow. Bread and butter pudding with crumpet. That would be very good. Because that's soaking up anything you pour on it, right? Yeah. Whoa, mama.

Yeah, you've thrown some quite fabulous. That would be good. I think I'd do that then. Yeah. A bread and butter pudding, obviously, but with a crumpet bread. Made by your grandad? Made by grandad, but not in his vicinity. How's he going to react, though, if you say, I want your bread and butter pudding, but can you replace it with crumpet bread? What's he going to say to that? Can you text him now? God only knows. I could do. I could get him on FaceTime. FaceTime him now. I'd pitch it to him. Yeah, I don't think he'd be going for it. No.

Do you want me to phone him? You can do. Yeah, you can do. You can do it. Just see what he thinks of the suggestions. I don't want... He might be dead confused. Where are you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, he almost certainly will be. He was quite shocked to see himself pop up on Taskmaster. He never answers the calls, but let's give him a call. G-Dog. Is that what he is in your phone? G-Dog? G-Dog. Yeah, cool. He won't answer. No? Come on, G-Dog.

Come on, G-Dog. It's worth it just to find out that your granddad saved us G-Dog in your phone, to be fair. I could try Maggie Mae, his wife. G-Dog and Maggie Mae. And they live in Majorca, right? They live in Majorca. They've been there years, like 25 years now. Maggie Mae. Try Maggie Mae now. Come on, Maggie. Because Maggie might know if you'd be up for doing the crumpet bread. Yeah. See if they remember Malik in Majorca. Yeah, I'll ask.

Not going to happen. What time is it in Mallorca? Oh, hello. Maggie? Oh, you're there. Listen, I'm live on the podcast. I need to speak to Grandad. Not live. No, we're not live. It's who he is. Yeah. Hello, Grandad. I just want to ask you about bread and butter pudding. Best way to make it. Bread and butter pudding? Yeah. Let's think. Butter? Yeah. Butter?

Full cream milk. Yeah? Well, how would you feel if I put crumpet bread in it?

It won't work. Why would it not work? Because it's too spongy, that. You want sliced white bread. Right. All right. Thanks, Grandad. I love you. Don't forget the currants and the raisins. I won't forget the currants and the raisins. This is why I couldn't cook with him, because he'd be over your shoulder. It's good. I like all of this detail. I like his detail. This is James. This is Ed. This is Ben. Hi. Hello. They're doing a food podcast, and I was telling them about your culinary skills, but how you're also quite fast.

In the kitchen. I'm just doing it now, culinary skills. What are you doing? Jointed roast chicken with peppers, potatoes, red onions, garlic. Delicious. That sounds absolutely delicious. Yeah, they're a lot more impressed with your recipes than I've done for the past hour. Small potatoes. Beautiful. Yeah, he's very good. I better go, Grandad. Love you.

Love you too. See you soon. Speak to you soon. Adios. Hasta luego. Right. Love that. Love him. He definitely did a lot better on this than I did. Yeah, we'll have him on another one. Great. We'll have him on an episode. Yeah. So I think we've got to not do the crumpet bread then. Yeah. It won't work. The expert G-Dogs told us it's not a good idea. Yeah. Won't work. It did seem quite already a bit pissed off. We don't do that. Yeah. My favourite bit was you saying, how do you make your bread and butter pudding? What do you need? And he went, well, bread.

He went, let's see. Let's see, Brad. Butter. That was before he knew you were on a podcast. It was absolutely trashing you. James loves cats. No, James loves cats. James loves cats. And their names are Terry Roo, Alex Spiderman and Cat Dealey. Here's Helen Skelton, C-Matt and Rachel Stephens learning all about my love.

I've got a little barbecue you can turn on with your phone. What? See? Outside equipment. He wants it. Immediately he wants it. I want it because I could be on my way home and turn the barbecue on so it's ready when I get back. That's the point. You can turn it on from wherever you are. Hang on, is it a gas barbecue? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not messing with that. Oh.

You turn up and the whole house is burnt down. Well, you leave it outside. It's outside. It's a barbecue. So I'd worry. Really good. I'd worry that I turn it on on my phone and then it like makes the whole thing like judder towards the house or something. Ha ha ha!

You know? It's not a robot. Yeah, it's not a Roomba. It's a robot. You turned it on on your phone. Oh, valid, valid. That's a robot. That could go crazy. So you think it's jiggling all the way to the house. Judging towards the house. It's opening the door. No, it's smashing through your window. Yeah. Your patio window. And then what's the issue? And then it sets your whole house on fire. Right. Because it's a turned on barbecue. Yeah.

Also, you've got a cat, so you might turn it on and then the cat's like, whoa, what's going on here? And then jumps on the barbecue. But the cat can't go outside. What kind of cat is that? Yeah, what kind of cat is that? Siberian cat. That stays inside? It's a house cat. Where does it poo? In a litter box. That blew your mind, didn't it? You've never heard of a house cat before? But it never ever goes outside? No. Gross. You've got four cats that never go outside, so imagine what his house is like. They never go outside ever? No. No?

Also, we live in London. People knit cats. Yeah. Especially handsome cats like ours. Yeah. Stunners. We've got real stunners. We've got real stunners, Helen. I mean, I'm so happy that the gender stereotypes are just being shot at, aren't they? Yeah. Correct. Cat guys. Yeah, we're cat boys. We're cat boys. I'm proud. Okay. I've got four. They all stay in the house. My whole life stinks of shit. Ha ha ha!

That's unusual, isn't it? Yeah. We're getting a... I think the guy doing the catio is coming this week. I can't wait. You've enjoyed that my dog's called Spider-Man. What? I knew you'd enjoy that. No. Wait till you hear... My cat is called Spider-Man. We were destined to be friends. We were. This is amazing. This is... And check this out as well. The cat that's called Spider-Man

He's got eyes like yours. Cross eyes? Yeah, they go a bit cross eyes. And do you love that about him? Yeah. Well, we got him. It's only when you take his lenses out. Only when we take his lenses out. I'd lay there.

Shown is a really nice compliment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Slightly creepy. With the context, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, guess what? My cat has got eyes like Paul Hollywood. Yeah, he does actually. And he looks at you like he knows it as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He definitely knows it. So you can't look him in the eye? I can't look his cat in the eye. No way.

Fizzy water, it just feels counterintuitive and it doesn't feel neutral. It's supposed to be a neutral, delicious substance that brings health and vitality. And fizzy water is like eating TV static or something. It's just, it's wrong. I know a lot of people use that comparison, but it's right. Yeah, yeah. Or white noise. Yeah.

You know, not good. Sorry, I've made a lot of noises. No, it's great. We love it. It's a podcast. It's an audio medium. Yeah. The more noises, the better. Is that a noise? You know, when they... A little clown horn. You didn't need Jim Carrey. Although you did it with two hands there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

that's another noise another horn I think the mask does that noise yeah has the mask aged well I don't know but Cameron Diaz is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen on screen I think that's the best a person has ever looked in a film is Cameron Diaz in that movie walking into the bank yeah when she walks into the bank yeah first appearance I love her

She's married to a good Charlotte. Do you know that? She is. I didn't know she was married to one of the good Charlottes. She's married to... It's standing the test of time. They've been together for like 15 years, which is like 70 years. I think she's married to Benji. Benji or Joel. You've stumbled into Ed's...

area of expertise here. Really? Well, no, also, I did know that because I've just started watching the new series of Ink Master and Joel Madden is the new host of Ink Master. And is that the Cameron Diaz one? No, I think that's the other one. That's the Nicole Richie one. Because the other one was married to Nicole Richie. Yeah, that's the Nicole Richie one. Yeah. The good Charlotte boys have, you know. I bet they're

I bet they're charming as hell. Yeah. You got to be funny and charming as hell to keep up with the wondrous master that is Cameron Diaz. But also, they, you know, they're known for believing that girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money. So they must feel on edge every day. That is one of the few good Charlotte songs I know. And they've both married women who are definitely infinitely wealthier than them. So just to show you what's going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love them. Actually,

I actually love them. They seem like such good vibes. Yeah, I went to a CD UK special recording of Good Charlotte. Wow.

They needed three songs. Cat Dealey. Yeah, Dealey. Cat Dealey UK. Right? Isn't that what that was? I don't think it... Did it stand for Cat Dealey UK? That's going to blow my mind if it did. Because she was on it now. She was the host, yeah. I thought that's why it was called CD UK. It was Cat Dealey UK. I thought it was just CD because CDs had music on them. Yeah, but also Cat De... Or was that a double meaning? It works on two levels. Wow. There you go. Love her. Queen of Ireland. I wrote a poem for her once. Sent it into SMTV. Hang on, what?

Hang on. James, why have you never told me this? I thought you knew. I thought you knew that. No. Can you remember any of the poem and I need to know immediately? I can remember the whole thing, but I'm not going to recite it. Recite it. James. Recite it. You've already told us that you wrote a poem to Cat Dee Lee. Was it like giving William Wordsworth or was it giving like Andrew Diceman Clay or something? Hickory dickory duck. A little bit of a crossover, I guess.

I thought it was going to be like a funny poem, but I think it came off... Was it horny? Quite horny. Well, I was just very earnest. Like I was in, you know, it was, I was in, I was 11. That's fair. Sent it in. Benito, can we book Kat Deely for this podcast, please? I've met her before. She's great. Well, let's not talk about booking other guests. We're midway through. Nah, it's so fair. You're just going to have to bring me back when she's here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll be like, hello?

What was the most fun show to go on when you were starting out as S Club? Because now, you know, they're with you around these podcasts. We apologise. Probably not as fun as live and kicking and stuff. But what was the one you looked forward to the most when S Club was starting out? I mean, the Saturday morning TV was so fun. SMTV, CDUK. I mean, it was such a...

exciting moment in time. All the big party, like party in the park, all those big, massive, like shows in the park, all the road shows. We were just always on, always go. It's so different now. Yeah. With everything being on social, we didn't social media. We didn't have all of that back then. So we were literally, if we were going on a radio tour, we would go to every place. We would, you know, so we were all over the place. You couldn't get rid of us for a while. I enjoyed a TV show. So that's like nowadays, if you were literally on,

on social media, trended every day. If you had a TV show back then, that's absolutely huge. Whereas now there's so many TV shows. Yeah. Now if a band was told you got a TV show, they'd be like, oh, we're dead.

That would be it. That would be the end. That's it. Our career's over. No one's going to watch that. But that's how it started. Yeah. You were on that as well? Yeah. Did you do, when you went on SMTV, did you ever do the sketches? Because I imagine you would have more skills in that department, your TV show. Yeah, we did all the, what was it called? The front, you're probably too young. Chums. Chums. We're not too young. We're not too young. That's absolutely our sweet spot.

Oh yeah, cool. Chums. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How old would you have been then? Secondary school. Yeah. I remember like, that's when I wrote the Cat Dealey poem when I was in secondary school. The Cat Dealey poem? Yeah, yeah. I sent it in, but they didn't read it out. Was she your crush? Yeah, of course she wasn't. She's gorgeous, yeah. I was a red-blooded teen. Yeah.

Not made of stone. Not made of stone. Yeah. She was gorgeous, wasn't she? She is gorgeous. Yeah. Do you remember the poem, James? Yes. Oh, share. Share with the group. Not going to share. Oh, come on. Rachel Stephens is asking you to share the poem about Cat D. No, no, no, no. Now, I know you've refused to do it in the past. Share a line. Just one line. Just give us a little taster. Yeah, that's great. A little taster. Well, I'll tell you what. There's a food line, so that's relevant to the podcast. I want the most embarrassing line. Yeah. It's all embarrassing. I'm almost eating my bowl full of pasta.

Looking at you, my heart would beat faster. That's not embarrassing. That's really sweet. What is it? Eat my bowl of pasta? And while eating my bowl full of pasta. And while eating my bowl full of pasta. Looking at you, my heart would beat faster. I didn't read it out. No. I was pretty sure they'd read it out. No, they probably put you on a watch list. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's probably not off that list. Love that. Would you like that if someone wrote you a poem that said when they were eating pasta, their heart beat faster? I would love that so much. I would really love that. I was just thinking it wouldn't work if, because you're from up north, right? Yeah, Midlands. So if you were saying faster, it wouldn't work. Yeah, yeah. Pasta. Pasta. You do my bowl of pasta, you make my heart beat faster. That could work. That's what I would have said, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll never do more than one line an episode any time SMTV gets brought up. Right. Well, I'll bring up SMTV every single episode. Yes. You'll finally get the full poem. We'll piece together the full thing, exactly. But I'm not giving you it in order, so it's like Mr. Chips. Yeah. Did she ever hear this poem? It didn't get to her. I don't know. I mean, I hope so. I hope someone read it to her. I think you need to send it to her now if you saw it. Do it again. I think that's weirder, maybe.

That I send it to her now? Yeah. Yeah, probably would be. Did you say weird? Yeah. Yes, and wonderful. Weird and wonderful. That's why you want him to do it, right? Yeah. You think she'd be very flattered? Yeah. Then I'll recite the whole thing. Well, if that's a guarantee. Oh, of course it's a guarantee. If we get Kat Deely on the podcast, I'll recite the whole poem. But like, listen...

I'm not here to think about Cat Daly, we've got Rachel Stephenson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before we were going to start recording this, Rachel, I was going to ask you a question, Benito made me save it for the podcast, so I'll do this. I asked you about Sweet Dreams My LAX, your solo song. I've had this bit of trivia in my head about it for years, ever since it came out, to the point where I don't even know if it's true.

Was it written by the same person who wrote Toxic by Britney Spears? Yeah. Yes. Yes. There you go. Said it for the pod. Yeah, well, I told you it was boring. But that's what I've always had in my head. Yeah. But that feels like information that you could have found out for sure. And can't get you out of my head. Wow.

Wow. Yeah. She had a good weekend. That's amazing. You couldn't get it out of your head. And she wrote, can't get me out of your head. I mean. That is incredible. Yeah. It's incredible. And you couldn't get Kat Diggly out of your head. No, never will be able to. I wouldn't want to.

We've still not had Cat De Leon, but I feel like next series, we're going to make that happen and you're going to read that poem finally. I'll read the poem if she comes on, I swear to you. And finally, it wouldn't be a best of episode without an annual dose of toilet humour. Let's hear from Michelle D'Souza, Nisha Katona, Johannes Radabe, Nabeel Abdul-Rashid, Jason Manzoukas, and of course, Patty Harrison. Of course, Patty Harrison. I, I,

I want you to have the Lucas Aid more than the wine because we've never had Lucas Aid chose before. Can I have Lucas Aid, please? So it's quite exciting that someone's chosen. Even though I just tried to piss on my chips. I didn't piss on your chips. They did change the recipe. I was asking a follow-up question. I've got to say something, Michelle. It can't just be you listing things you want and then we go, you know, if I've got a question, I'm going to ask the question. As much as we would like that to be, you have no idea how much we would love it if every episode was the guest just bangs off the here's what I want and then we go.

Yeah, that's only happened once. That's only happened once with Dan Aykroyd and it was the best day of my life. Yeah, and people still come up to me and ask me about that episode.

But what do you think of all the other Lucas Aid flavours? Not fast. No. Not into it. No, original. Pink lemonade? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I do the original like maybe once a year just to remind myself that I really like the orange one. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Got to keep the orange one in perspective. Yeah, exactly. All I remember is that it shouldn't be used to replace the fluids lost when you have diarrhoea. What? It says it on the bottle. I remember as a kid.

reading it and me and my friends thinking it was the funniest thing in the world. Well, they had to warn you that it was. Was there a rumour that it helped you rehydrate after diarrhoea? As kids, none of us like, even like, they had no concept of any of that anyway, so it's hilarious to us. You didn't know what diarrhoea was? We knew diarrhoea, but we didn't know that people were trying to replace fluids, Austin. We didn't know any of that, so we just thought every now and again, you get the shit, so it's the funniest thing in the world. That's what we knew. Yeah, man, diarrhoea song. Yeah, yeah. When you're sitting on the grass, dude.

comes out your ass? Diarrhoea. Diarrhoea. No. Do you not remember the Diarrhoea song? Comes at your bum like a bullet from a gun. Diarrhoea. Diarrhoea. Diarrhoea.

We've never spoke about this before. No, we genuinely haven't. And we grew up in different boroughs. What? No. Yeah, I assume that was UK-wide, the Diarrhoea song. No, I feel cheated. Maybe I've forgotten it. You don't forget the Diarrhoea song. If you've heard the Diarrhoea song, you do not forget it. That sticks in your head. Yeah. Shit. I remember that. Bubbling hot. They're not dissimilar. They're dissimilar songs.

Like a soup in a pot, we are what? Bubbling hot? Diarrhoea. Diarrhoea. Like a soup in a pot, it's bubbling hot. Diarrhoea. Diarrhoea. Always ends up back here.

That's amazing. I didn't know you were a barrister and then did this complete pivot. That's pretty... It's mad, yeah. Did you recognise that's pretty impressive? I tell you what's impressive, honestly, what's impressive is that I think I've lived this long and retained continence. That, I think, is impressive because I'm old. You know, that, I think, is impressive. Honestly, it's... Do you want me to tell the story? To keep continence when I'm with Ed and Tom.

We were in the reception of a hotel and I can't remember what Nisha was laughing at. We probably didn't even know. She's absolutely lost it laughing. And then she wet herself in the reception of a hotel. That was such an inspiring story. Being a barrister and then realising the three spice rule and being able to completely change your entire life. And Ed's just responded with the fact that he wants to piss himself in a hotel.

Do you know, James, do you know what it was? It was simply Ed saying, Nisha, where's your room? Sending me to my room because of Dadalane night. It got to the point, and it still does at GBM, that he just, even if I'm in the same room as him, I find it very hard to control my incontinence. It's just the way he moves. How many times has this happened? Do you ever find him this far? No. How many times has this happened?

Honestly, I think I struggle with a lot when I'm with it.

But all he has to do, I remember he just walked into a room and pushed the door open in his kind of Ed gangly way. And I really lost countenance again. Pissed yourself again? Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. Do you know what I mean? Because he walked into a room? Just because he walked into a room. That's a gift, isn't it? That's like an Eric Morecambe thing. Surely that was what it was like being Ernie Wise. You are the only person who reacts like that to me, Nisha. Yeah, I think Ed's found the person he wants to write as a bittery. Bittery, yeah.

All they had to do was walk into a room. Real Eric Morecambe. But it's so bad because every time we get a comedian on or anyone on as a guest, I do spend a lot of time saying, don't you think Ed's dead funny? She tried to get me in the new series of Inside Number Nine when we had Steve Pemberton on. I did. You should put Ed in your show. I did. Steve, please don't listen to this woman. That's your response. When he said, what room are you in? You should have said Number Nine. I should have. I could have been the episode.

No, but obviously, I'm so sorry to interrupt the inspiring story of someone who's doing fantastic work as a barrister and then is now doing fantastic work within the world of food. But you did once piss yourself in the lobby of a hotel. It wasn't a fully fledged, you know what I mean? It wasn't a deluge. But I did need the loo. I did have to then run to the loo. Obviously, it was enough that they knew it. They knew it had happened. We've got, can we go to

Good chemistry on that. Yes. I think we've got good chemistry on that programme, haven't we? Yeah, we're a very good team together, I think. Give me some tips. I've been trying to get some chemistry going with this fucking video. Wet yourself a little bit. I didn't know I had to piss my pants in front of him in order for him to get on board. But it was weird because I'm sort of sitting there like this kind of dowager aunt between the two of you. I don't know where you got that from. What are you talking about? I am talking about...

that honestly i cannot imagine that honestly so first i think it's really amazing that it chose me that honestly i was really honored by that because this is i tell you the thing about it is it's always been very michelin starred kind of food it's very haute cuisine very very western classical hasn't it yeah i mean that's what you think and the truth is that's not the way this nation eats anymore so it's pretty broad-minded of them to get someone in who

whose expertise is more world, you know, so I go around the world. I mean, I mean, literally around the world learning how to cook because I'm obsessed with it. So first of all, I was very appreciative of that. And then it wasn't really kind of them to get you on because it's like, but it's not because you're overly qualified for the job. I'm overly qualified for family law. It's a bit different. It's not really what's going on. I think they would say they're lucky to have you. Before you, there was like those two old dead guys. No, no, no.

They were amazing. And they are such nice guys. And they were amazing. And you look at that and you think, okay, that's what it is to be a true foodie, you know. But then the dynamics. And then it took, didn't it take a little while for us to just work out how we intersected a bit? Yeah, you always say this. I thought we hit the ground running, personally. We didn't. We completely didn't. Because basically, I thought, first of all, I've just got to say whatever Tom says. What, copy Tom? Copy Tom, really. Okay. And then try and get Ed to like me more by, I just asked him about tattoos as I did, 10

10 minutes ago. Yeah, yeah. I did notice you did. And you say tattoos. That's lovely. Anyone who says tattoos I know isn't really interested. What are you meant to say? No, I think everyone else in the world says tattoos. Oh, tattoos. Not tattoos. Have you any new tattoos, Ed, I would say? Have you any new tattoos? Have you seen anything on the films recently? Yeah. To get him to like me. Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure he likes you. Yeah, I like you instantly, don't you? Yeah.

What did Moxie choose, Benito? Sparkling. Sparkling. There you go. Yeah. Straight away. Sparkling. She strikes me as somebody that would drink sparkling water. Well, I think especially if you're a dancer, you're drinking still water all the time when you're training because you can't drink sparkling water while you're training, obviously. Why not? Well, you'd be burping all the time, wouldn't you? Imagine doing a backflip. You do a burp during it. You might do an ultra backflip. Go.

True, it's fine. But I mean, if you're in the competition a couple of weeks, I can burp. It's fine. I think I saw that once on Strictly. Well, I was going to say, during Strictly, if you did a very obvious and, need I say more, stinky burp,

that wafted towards the judges. Where is this? On the dance floor? On the dance floor. You're dancing with a celeb. You're hoping the burp lands in Debeck's face because that's a 10 anyway. I think it was close. They smell the burp. They know you've done the burp. They've seen you do the burp. How many points do you think they'd take off for the burp? Each judge. No, I mean, no question. LAUGHTER

How far off would you have to be for them to smell? Do you never go right up to the judges table and do a shimmy or something? Sometimes you go right up to the judges. And that's true. I'm just trying to think about it now. Let me see. Oh, goodness. So you're in their face shimmying and you burp. Ew. Obviously, Craig is the worst person to burp in front of or burp on or Shirley.

So I think Motsi would laugh. Yeah. She wouldn't love it. Standard. She'd laugh. Motsi would take a swig of sparkling water and burp right back at you. I mean, it would be sweet if you burped in Chris's face. I mean, it's always for his sake. I see.

I said, serious. I think it will make him laugh. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know how that will go down. No, never. You never thought about that? Never thought about that. This is why we bring the tough questions on our menu. Yeah, we ask the tough questions. This is what people want to know. But I don't think these points should be deducted for something as natural as burping. But if it's a really big one though, massive, I'm still talking massive. As long as you are not out of timing. Mm-hmm.

And you didn't mess up your choreography. I say burp a lot. Do you know what I mean? As long as it doesn't affect your choreography, I shouldn't be taking off points. Yeah, you would argue that on live television. Oh, definitely. What if it was just an artistic choice? I met Craig recently. Stop. I was doing, well, wait till you hear this. I was doing Live at the Apollo. I was hosting an episode of Live at the Apollo. Very nerve-wracking moment for a comedian. You want it to all go well. We were the first one they were filming that night.

And then just before they said, oh, we're filming something for a hundred years of the BBC where Craig and some strictly people like invade the stage at loads of different TV shows. So they're going out there first to do their thing. And I was like, right. Did the, and the audience know this? They went, no, we're just going to do it. So they went out and did a dance. The audience sat there baffled because they thought it was alive at the Apollo. They come off and like, right. Okay. Just get your head in the game. You've got to get this right now. You probably have a bit of work to do at the top because they're a bit confused.

And I just heard someone go, yeah, we'll just do it one more time. Yeah. Three times they did that dance. That was probably Medflin, yes. And then I had to go out and sort of not mention it. Oh. LAUGHTER

where was this this was at the Hammersmith Apollo congratulations on that thank you very much one of the biggest gigs of a comedian's career hosting live at the Apollo and I had to work really hard at the top because everyone was initially baffled and then just absolutely wowed by the dancing and then I come out in you know t-shirt and jeans and then watch the same dance three times so that's

I'm sorry about that. Oh, no, it was lovely to watch. Oh, Strictly must be everywhere, isn't it? Yeah, even infiltrating the comedy shows now. So again, you could boil it in a mold or if you want to be super traditional, banana leaves. You boil them on the side.

Thing is, if you eat all these things in combination, you're going to fart yourself into orbit. I mean, you have a fight. No, I don't want to. If you're eating this meal, you want to make sure you're not doing anything for the rest of the day, right? You can't. Okay, I'm going to ask a question, right? I don't do toilet humor. Sure. But I just want to know if it's only me. Yeah. Have you ever farted so hard that it pushed your balls?

Pushed him where? Like you were sitting down and like because you were sitting down your guy's kind of like pushed your balls to get I mean I've not noticed that You've never done a ball tickler for I'd

I've probably done the tickler, but I've not pushed my balls. No, like, I didn't push. The fart came out. Yeah, sure. It was so much power. But that's what I mean. I've watched Dragon Ball Z. I've not seen much Dragon Ball Z. Do you know about the spirit bomb? I don't know about the spirit bomb. I think I know where you're going with it, but I think I've probably felt the fart on my balls. But it didn't push. It didn't move the balls. No, it didn't move.

If you see what I mean. Is that what happens in Dragon Ball Z? No. Is they fart and push each other's balls around? I mean, maybe off camera, but you have like these massive fireball things that they do. It was like that on farts. Like, I had to stop what I was doing and take a few minutes to just collect myself. And have you been eating Moi Moi? Is that what has done it? Yeah, yeah.

I think it's amazing. Like you talk about hydrating. A lot of people I know live in LA that talk about making sure they hydrate. But that combined with a city where you're constantly in your car. When you say it like that, it sounds like I'm an insufferable Angeleno. And Ed, the point is taken.

You've really, right here at the end, you've really rocked me to my core. That's what I didn't say at the beginning, man. Justin Manzocchi's tricks piss. The secret ingredient. But do you not just need the toilet all the time in your car? I do. Yeah. All the time. And have had some very close calls. Yeah, yeah. Very close calls. Is so much so that I've now had to, a number of times, pull up into side streets to surreptitiously try and piss without somebody being like, hey! Hey!

Adrian Pimento from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Big fan, man. While I'm just like, don't look at me. You know, while they're walking their dog in their neighborhood. While a semi-known person is just pissing. Or one of those celebrity tour buses. Oh my gosh. And there he is. Once again, unable to make it all the way home from lunch. Jason Manzik is pissing on the side of the road. And if we turn down here, we might see him.

Jason Manzing is once again pissing mere moments from his house because it's always like four minutes from home. My body's like, and now.

Because something about like turning up my street makes me feel like I'm there yeah, yeah, and then it's just game over So that's the other thing is I'm pissing in my own neighborhood like so my neighbor It's only a matter of time. It's not like I'm it's not like I'm on the other side of time being like whatever nice whatever I'm just like crouching in some bushes like an absolute maniac No, I'm in the neighborhood that I live in where my neighbors might walk by and be like hey Jason. How are you?

And I'm going to have to be like, Hey, what's going on? Couldn't make it home. I'm in my fifties. Who knew? They're going to think you don't have a toilet. Like you've not paid to put a toilet in your house. Well, I also have a bunch of smashed toilets out front of my house.

I am very vocally anti-toilet. I think big toilet's trying to take us over. I will say, I just got one of those Japanese toilet seats. Oh, wow. Just the thing you put on, and it does all the same stuff. You know... Holy cow. You look like Nish, but you know you're living... Am I really? You're like good timeline Nish, where you're living his dreams. Oh, yes. Oh, please. Because me and Nish, I'd say, you know, we talk most days...

I'd say 50% of our conversations are about imagine if we had a Japanese toilet. Oh, I thought you were going to say 50% of your conversations are Nish saying, what if I could lead Jason Manzoukas' life? Does the Japanese toilet have writing on the side that says Jason Manzoukas? Yep. Shit's here. Piss is down the road. Piss is down the road. Shit's here. This is Jason Manzoukas' sake cup. Dwayne The Rock Johnson's bushes or whatever. Oh,

I will say this is the thing is a game changer. You know, the toilet itself I think is insanely expensive, but the the bidet seat very affordable and incredible. I mean like really good. Like being here for a couple of weeks. I'm like, oh man, I really miss it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the main thing. You can look at the photos of it on your phone. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm texting it. It's not texting me back. Do you feel really dirty? I feel filthy right now. I feel like I'm sitting in my own filth.

You know, it's disgusting. It's disgusting. You don't, you, you feel clean afterwards in a way that you just cannot from mashing paper around. Think about it. Why would we,

Why would we do things like this? This should be, we should all just shoot water at our assholes and be done with it. It's absolutely absurd that we mush paper around and just smear the shit around. You wouldn't do it to your plates. You wouldn't, exactly. You wouldn't do it to your plates. Imagine if someone, you went to someone's house for dinner and they popped a plate down and it was clearly like, yeah, like, like, oh, we just wiped, we wiped it. Last night's dinner, we wiped, we dry wiped it. We dry wiped last night's dinner off of the plates. It's fine.

That's what you're doing. You're dry wiping your own shit. Yeah. All over. Is that what you people came to this podcast for? They know that. They would be disappointed. It's taken us this long to get there. I think because of the way that I feel now, my second go, the final course would just be like a big fucking hot water shit filled with tampons. Piece of shit. Arabeata.

It would be shit and tampons. Tampons prepared like a fusilli or whatever. Yeah. Soaked in the shit. Yeah.

A bolognese. Yeah. A shit bolognese, human shit, and whatever's around. So, just to be clear, a human shit bolognese, is that just like someone's made a bolognese out of human shit, or someone's eaten bolognese and then shit it out? Very good question from James. Well, let's see, James. This is just like a very simple kind of science question. Yeah. If you eat bolognese...

If you go home after this, you eat bolognese. And then 10 hours later, right? That's the normal digestive cycle. You shit. Do you look into the toilet and say, that's bolognese, I'm going to eat it again? I wouldn't say I'm going to eat it again. I wouldn't say, I mean, you said shit mixed with bolognese or bolognese shit. I wouldn't say I'm going to eat it again, but I might be like, I got the bolognese shits. Yeah.

Not after 10 hours, though. That would have to be within an hour or two, I think, for you to look in and go, that's bolognese. I've got the bolognese. It's not even a visual thing for me. It's like, sometimes you just feel it. You know what it is that you ate that's making you shit. But usually, if you're getting shits that fast after eating something irritating, you're not shitting that thing. You're shitting the other stuff that was in there that's getting... Which I was once told by a goddamn hotel receptionist. What? I tried to complain...

that the breakfast that I'd eaten had given me the shits. She was like, that couldn't have been because when did you have the breakfast? And I was like, look, an hour ago, I just shat everywhere. And she was like, she was like, that couldn't have been the breakfast. I was like, it would definitely, I ate the breakfast and then I went to a hotel room and I just did shits everywhere and it's all covered in shit. And she was like,

She Googled it in front of me on the computer, and then she said to me, there you go, that shows it couldn't have been the breakfast. It takes this long to effect you if you get food poisoning from something. It couldn't have been that breakfast that we gave you. We're not apologising for nothing. Then I had to go to the next leg of my tour. LAUGHTER

And when you say you shit, there was shit everywhere. Was that, did you like diarrhea and it ended up on the floor or something? It ended up on the robe that I was wearing. What? I was relaxing. I ate the breakfast, went back to my hotel, had a shower, put a robe on, sat down to do emails, shat the robe big time.

After your shower. Yeah, after the shower is the worst. I had to soak the robe in the sink. Apologies to them. The fact that you then, the level of confidence you must have had to shit in a hotel robe and then call reception and say your breakfast just made me do a shit in your robe. Well, listen, I knew they were going to see that.

I tried to clear up the evidence. I tried to. I was like, no. So I was like, and I was angry about it. Right. What I would do is I would take that robe with me and then I'd pay for the robe. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't call reception and admit I just done a shit in the robe. I'd call reception. I'd send it to their face when I was leaving. Sometimes the robes, though, are like $300. And then it's like, you're going to, it's like,

I would want to then, 'cause I wouldn't want, just 'cause there's shit on it, I wouldn't want to throw it away if I was really gonna take that hit. But then be like, okay, I'm gonna keep the robe, but I gotta wash it. But then if you put a shit robe in your luggage, the smell will get into the rest. And I say this as someone who has shit in underwear and been like, I was like, I guess I'm gonna travel with it. And I put it in a bag. Guess what? It gets through the bag.

It gets through the back and it makes your other clothes smell like poop. This was a really long time ago. This was recent. Mine was ages ago. Yeah, mine was about a month from today. I would just say even if the robe was $300...

I think I'm willing to spend that so I don't get into a situation where a hotel receptionist is Googling how long does it take for something to make you shit yourself? Well, and then showing me the results. And also the kind of like, I don't know, that's kind of like litigation or something like that or the skill to be like, actually, yeah, science says here on the screen, like she's probably had people,

Do that before. Yeah, that can't have been the first time the breakfast has made someone shit themselves. That's what it felt like. It felt like she was like, I've been here many times before, you're not going to win this. It feels like maybe the bacteria was just sitting in your gut, and as soon as food touched it, it inflamed it. So it probably was the food, but maybe it was the food from the night before. That's just like...

how sometimes you'll like not if you're sick in with like a stomach flu or something and you won't have to puke or like get you don't get that like weird nauseous feeling until you actually try and eat something yeah that's what it felt did you did you tell them about the robe no no i was like that they'll find out and was there any blow was there any blowback from that no they didn't follow up and go hey find that robe in the sink soaking in the in the sink

don't you think we don't know what you did? I didn't do that. I don't, I don't know exactly what hotel it was. I'd know the hotel if I saw it. Yes, of course. And they'd know you if they saw you. Yeah. I think actually I was already at the point in my career where she did know me, unfortunately. And you went down and you were like, I shit. And what did you want to, what did you in your head? What did you. Yeah. You know, at the time, I guess I thought they might take the breakfast off the bill.

I don't know why I wanted that. I don't know why I thought that was a fair trade. That was worth my dignity. Was this when you were going through a tricky time? When I'm on tour. Yeah, I was on tour. So yeah, I was at my wits end. You know, it really, it's a tour I think is destabilising.

A lot of stuff. It throws your whole body out of whack. Mind, body, soul. It's okay. And maybe she saw that. Maybe she was like, it's not the breakfast. It's the tour. Yeah. She could have Googled my tour dates and just shown me those and gone. Yeah. These are too close together. Yeah. This kind of geographically doesn't make sense. Yeah. Go through that list and tick every time you've done a horrible shit. It's every day.

That's it for part one. We'll be back with part two tomorrow. Perhaps you've listened to this whilst travelling to see family over the festive period. Maybe you've been cooking a Boxing Day feast. Or maybe, like James, you've been cleaning your flat. Hi, James. See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow.

Hey, Ryan, that was a fast trip. It was like you teleported. Yeah, just got in. I'll get all my expenses logged, I promise. Oh, no, you're okay. SAP Concur uses advanced AI, so your expense report will practically write itself. Quite the breakthrough. It's like we've been teleported into the future. All right. So, just curious, would you give us written permission to convert your matter into energy patterns and reassemble you at, say, random travel destinations? Margaret, are you building a teleporter? No.

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